DETROIT — Fox baseball broadcaster Steve Lyons has been fired for making a racially insensitive comment directed at colleague Lou Piniella’s Hispanic heritage on the air during Game 3 of the American League championship series. The network confirmed Saturday that Mr. Lyons was dismissed after Friday’s comments. He has been replaced for the remainder of the series by Los Angeles Angels announcer Jose Mota.

“Steve Lyons has been relieved of his Fox Sports duties for making comments on air that the company found inappropriate,” network spokesman Dan Bell said. Mr. Lyons had been working in the booth for the ALCS alongside Thom Brennaman and Mr. Piniella, the no. 2 broadcast team for Fox this postseason.

In the second inning of Friday’s game between Detroit and Oakland, Mr. Piniella talked about the success light-hitting A’s infielder Marco Scutaro had in the first round of the playoffs. Mr. Piniella said slugger Frank Thomas and Eric Chavez needed to contribute, comparing Mr. Scutaro’s production to finding a “wallet on Friday” and hoping it happened again the next week. Later, Mr. Piniella said the A’s needed Mr. Thomas to get “en fuego,” hot in Spanish because he was currently “frío” or cold. After Mr. Brennaman praised Mr. Piniella for being bilingual, Mr. Lyons spoke up.

Mr. Lyons said Piniella was “hablaing Español” butchering the conjugation for the word “to speak” and added, “I still can’t find my wallet.”

“I don’t want to sit too close to him now,” Mr. Lyons continued.