Cardinals pitcher Carlos Martinez embarrassed about 'favoriting' porn on Twitter

JUPITER, Fla., Feb. 25 (UPI) -- The St. Louis Cardinals asked one of their pitchers to change things up after Carlos Martinez's page of "favorite" tweets on Twitter was found to contain a little too much heat.

Martinez's Twitter went viral on Monday afternoon because it contained dozens of pornographic photos and links, and it was publicly available for anyone to see. After the Cardinals finally were able to reach Martinez on Monday evening, people from the organization helped him remove the images from his page. Cardinals manager Mike Matheny told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he has spoken to Martinez about the incident and that he has urged all his players to be conscious about social media because their mistakes are "one fraction of a second" away from becoming viral sensations.

"We're embarrassed," Matheny said, "and he's embarrassed."

Martinez is competing for a spot in the opening day rotation.

"I’m not trying to shove my morality down anybody’s throat. I’ve made that very clear," Matheny said. "But I also need these guys to understand that it’s not just me that they need to be concerned about. There are a bunch of young guys that absolutely admire these guys and everything that they do. Realize -- is this something you’d want your kids to see? Is this something that you want to be known for? Is this how you want to be remembered? I think the days of Charlie Barkley saying he’s not supposed to be a role model -- that’s garbage. If that’s what you want to do then you should have been a computer programmer sitting in your flipflops at home somewhere.”

"We are, like it or not, role models, and that’s the danger when this thing hits the area that it hit. There are a lot of young eyes that love the St. Louis Cardinals and their players and could be easily influenced. Regardless of your moral compass and where it points, those sort of things that we’re talking about are not things we want our kids seeing."

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch] [Deadspin]