Tag Archives: Milwaukee Brewers

by | May 21, 2013 · 8:46 am

To Bunt or Not to Bunt, That is the Question—Even if it Doesn’t Make Much Sense

Kyle LohseWe may have found a new unwritten rule in Busch Stadium on Sunday. Either that, or Kyle Lohse is completely off his rocker.

Lohse allowed six singles to the first seven batters he faced in the fourth inning (including a bases-loaded squeeze beaten out by Pete Kozma), during which time he allowed four runs. That left runners at first and second, with one out, for pitcher John Gast.

Gast squared to bunt, but pulled the bat back at the last moment to swing away. This is not an unusual baseball move, especially for a pitcher, when the opposing third baseman is charging hard. Lohse, however, was irate, and threw three consecutive pitches high and inside. Gass eventually bunted into an out.

The act might have been explainable as an anti-bunt strategy had Lohse not immediately thereafter shared some heated thoughts with Cardinals third base coach Jose Oquendo, then continued the conversation with catcher Yadier Molina when he came to the plate the following inning.

“They know what I had to say,” Lohse said in an MLB.com report. “It had nothing to do with the squeeze or anything like that. It was something that happened after that. … I’ll leave it at that. They know.”

Ultimately, St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz may have offered the clearest-eyed viewpoint, speculating that Lohse was ticked that after five seasons in St. Louis A) the Cards didn’t keep him on their roster in favor of going with young pitchers, which B) left him first in free-agent purgatory and C) then with the last-place Brewers. There’s also D) the notion that Lohse is 1-5, despite pitching well this season, and that E) three of those losses have come at the hands of two of the young pitchers chosen by St. Louis to take his place—Shelby Miller and, last night, Gast. With that in mind, it makes sense that the pitcher’s fuse is a bit short. (Miller also did the square-to-bunt-and-pull-the-bat-back move against Lohse earlier in the season.)

On strictly baseball terms, given the information that’s currently available, Lohse doesn’t have a leg to stand on. (He also positioned himself as the anti-Nolan Ryan, who was known for drilling guys who tried to bunt on him. Lohse, it seems, was perturbed that a guy tried to not bunt on him.)

Lohse didn’t hit Gast, so no harm was actually done, but he was clearly pitching angry. It does not appear to be a retaliation-worthy offense, but stay tuned—these teams play each other nine more times this year.

(H/T Bill Ivie of I-70 Baseball.)

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by | June 28, 2012 · 9:01 am

Stop, Drop and Roll: Chapman’s Tumble Has Folks Talking

The evolution of self-congratulation in baseball has been long and storied. Reggie Jackson lingering in the batter’s box.  Barry Bonds’s twirls and Sammy Sosa’s bunny hops en route to first base. Earlier this season we had Yoenis Cespedes, who in his third major league game took some liberties while watching a mammoth shot off of Seattle’s Jason Vargas.

It’s that last one that holds the most relevance to today’s story, which features another recent Cuban émigré, in possession of perhaps not the firmest grasp of baseball mores, celebrating his own achievement with a literally over-the-top display that was well-received by neither opponents nor teammates.

When Aroldis Chapman tumbles, people pay attention.

After closing out a 4-3 victory over Milwaukee on Tuesday, Chapman celebrated by doing a double somersault toward the plate. The guy was delighted after getting back on track following consecutive blown saves and an 11.37 ERA over his previous seven outings, and his display of exuberance was unlike any baseball had yet seen. (Watch it here.)

It’s unlikely that Chapman intended to show up the Brewers, but there’s little gray area in baseball when it comes to this sort of thing; rarely is an example of unnecessary showboating so blatant.

“It’s about professionalism . . .” Joey Votto told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “It’s just not how you do things.”

Chapman, of course, has a bit of history when it comes to making curious decisions. There’s the ticket for driving nearly 100 mph with a suspended license. There’s the stripper girlfriend who may or may not have been involved with robbing his hotel room. Both are the mark of a young guy who hasn’t yet achieved full maturity. So, for that matter, is his tumble off the mound. One difference: The first two don’t inspire opposing pitchers to drill him.

Actually, since closers rarely bat, should the Brewers opt to take his celebration the wrong way it’ll likely be one of Chapman’s teammates who ends up paying for his mistake. Which is why members of the Cincinnati clubhouse were so quick to pile on following the game.

“We don’t play like that,” said manager Dusty Baker in an MLB.com report, adding in the Enquirer that “it’ ain’t no joke,” and that “it won’t happen again, ever.”

“You can’t be doing that,” said catcher Ryan Hanigan. Votto, Jay Bruce and pitching coach Bryan Price spoke with Chapman after the game. From John Paul Morosi’s report: “By the time Chapman returned to the clubhouse, the smile he wore on the field was gone. He rested his forehead on a bat as he sat silently at his locker. He declined comment through a team official, saying he was not ‘mentally ready’ to take questions from the media.”

This was important. It told the Brewers that, regardless of how they might respond the following day, the Cincinnati organization was on top of the matter. That kind of thing can make a difference, as evidenced by the fact that Wednesday’s game featured no hit batters. That could have been due to the fact that the score was too close to chance retaliation until the ninth, or that Brewers manager Ron Roenicke spent parts of three seasons as Baker’s teammate on the Dodgers, and understands how his counterpart feels about this kind of thing. Or maybe it’s just that Milwaukee has considerable recent history with its own displays of showboating.

Still, some comfort can be taken from knowing that a situation has been handled; Baker has seen it first-hand. From The Baseball Codes:

In a game in 1996, the Giants trailed Los Angeles 11–2 in the ninth inning, and decided to station first baseman Mark Carreon at his normal depth, ignoring the runner at first, Roger Cedeno. When Cedeno, just twenty-one years old and in his first April as a big-leaguer, saw that nobody was bothering to hold him on, he headed for second—by any interpretation a horrible decision.

As the runner, safe, dusted himself off, Giants third baseman Matt Williams lit into him verbally, as did second baseman Steve Scarsone, left fielder Mel Hall, and manager Dusty Baker. Williams grew so heated that several teammates raced over to restrain him from going after the young Dodgers outfielder. . . .

At second base, Scarsone asked Cedeno if he thought it was a full count, and the outfielder responded that, no, he was just confused. “If he’s that confused, somebody ought to give him a manual on how to play baseball,” said Baker after the game. “I’ve never seen anybody that con­fused.”

In the end, it was Eric Karros [who had been up to bat when this all went down] who saved Cedeno. When he stepped out of the box, as members of the Giants harangued the bewildered baserunner, Karros didn’t simply watch idly—he turned toward the San Francisco bench and informed them that Cedeno had run without a shred of insti­tutional authority, and that Karros himself would ensure that justice was administered once the game ended. Sure enough, as Cedeno sat at his locker after the game, it was obvious to observers that he had been crying. Though the young player refused to comment, it appeared that Karros had been true to his word. “Ignorance and youth really aren’t any excuse,” said Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza, “but we were able to cool things down.”

If there’s any ongoing resentment toward Chapman among the Brewers, we likely won’t know it until July 20, shortly after the All-Star Game, when the teams meet in Cincinnati. (Then again, if rosters hold, Votto and Ryan Braun will have all kinds of time to discuss the situation as members of the National League squad.)

Unlikely as the eventuality may be, should the Brewers decide to retaliate, and they do it in appropriate fashion, it would be shocking to hear a peep of protest from Baker.

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by | May 16, 2012 · 7:23 am

Brewers Denied Target Practice: Wright Pre-Emptively Pulled

David Wright gets riled in the dugout.

Because such thing exists as a pre-emptive strike, it goes to follow that its opposite must be pre-emptive strike avoidance. It’s a term not frequently utilized, especially in Major League Baseball, but it concisely sums up the strategy employed by Mets manager Terry Collins Tuesday at Citi Field.

That there was anything to avoid was courtesy of relief pitcher D.J. Carrasco, who, one pitch after a seventh-inning homer by Milwaukee’s Rickie Weeks extended the Brewers’ lead to 8-0, drilled Ryan Braun. Plate ump Gary Darling ejected the right-hander on the spot. (Watch it here.)

The first thing that crossed Collins’ mind appeared to be disbelief that Carrasco, the guy he was probably counting on to eat the game’s final three innings, was gone after only three batters. Shortly thereafter, the ramifications became clear: Braun was Milwaukee’s No. 3 hitter, and his counterpart on the Mets, David Wright, was due to lead off the bottom of the inning.

Factor in that Brewers starter Zach Greinke had to that point given up only four hits over six shutout innings; that the Mets would be lucky to avoid being shut out, let alone win the game; that Brewers manager Ron Roenicke has a bit of history when it comes to Code enforcement; that Wright has his own history when it comes to being hit by pitches; that there’s no player less dispensable to New York’s lineup than the .408-hitting Wright; and that if anybody was going to wear one for the sins of his team, it would clearly be the Mets’ third baseman.

Taking all that into consideration, Collins did what he felt prudent: He removed Wright.

Ryan Braun, and the pitch that started it all.

If Greinke had feelings about seeing pinch-hitter Jordany Valdespin instead of Wright, he kept them to largely to himself after the game, telling the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, “I don’t know what would have happened if [Wright] stayed in. They don’t want anyone important to get hurt, just like we don’t want someone important getting hurt.”

Wright, however, was clearly agitated, shouting at Collins in the dugout before turning on his heel and stalking away from the manager. (Watch it here.) Two batters later, Collins removed David Murphy for precisely the same reason.

“In my opinion, why I took him out of the game, he wasn’t getting hurt,” Collins said in a Newsday report. “I’m not accusing anybody for the possibility of retaliation. But I don’t blame the umpires for doing what they do. I don’t blame the other team for any perception they had of what happened, but I’ve got news for you: In this game there are unwritten rules. And one of the unwritten rules, is you hit my guy, I’m hitting your guy. They are not hitting my guy tonight. I’m not exposing him to being hit.”

“Terry’s the manager and I try to go to battle for Terry every day . . .” said Wright, who added that his response looked worse than it actually was. “Whether I agree or disagree with it, he’s got to make the move he thinks is best for the team, and he obviously did that . . . I respect him. I love playing for him.”

Carrasco issued a standard denial, and Braun claimed to have no feelings one way or the other about his opponent’s intent.

As a guy with eight seasons as a big league manager and 10 years of minor league playing time under his belt, Collins probably understands the game’s unwritten rules pretty well. In this instance, however, he may have been upstaged by Wright, when the third baseman told him in the dugout, “If anybody gets hit, I want it to be me.”

“My thinking at the time was, Ryan gets hit and then I go up there and get hit and then everything is settled,” Wright said in a MLB.com report.

In that, he was exactly correct. If it wasn’t the series’ final game, or if the teams’ next scheduled meeting wasn’t four months away, or if Wright was anything but a target of circumstance—were he drilled, it would have been because of where he hit in the lineup, not anything he did on the field—he would have had an air-tight case. Waiting a day to respond to an incident like this is hardly rogue strategy, but Roenicke and his team would have to be harboring a pretty serious grudge to put a target on Wright when they next see him in September.

It will all probably pass without incident, but that may have happened anyway. One thing Collins has assured, however, is that the Mets now have 16 weeks to consider the possibilities before actually seeing the results of this particular experiment.

Update (5/17): The principals have spoken, and the matter has been “handled.”

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by | October 13, 2011 · 8:47 am

We Must Be in the Front Row: Not First Time for Ticket Mixup at Busch

The view shared by members of the Brewers' traveling party?

Between the name-calling and the occasional hit batter and the Beast Mode, this Brewers-Cardinals NLCS has not been short on tempestuous fun.

Wednesday, however, things took a bit of a different turn. Whether it’s a bizarre form of institutional retaliation or simply shoddy planning, St. Louis’s decision to forgo the standard seating section for the families of Brewers players and staff—opting instead to spread them out around the ballpark—has been met with considerable anger.

“It’s bush,” said Nyjer Morgan in an ESPN.com report. “Our families, they’ve got to be secured. It’s kind of garbage. We put their [families] in a secure section and then they want to spread ours out. I don’t know why they play the mental games, but that right there, they shouldn’t play the games right there because that’s our family and our family has got to be secure. But that’s just them, that’s how they operate right there I guess.”

Leading to the theory that the decision was directly influenced by the team’s dislike for the Brewers is the fact that St. Louis reserved precisely such a section for its opponent in the NLDS, the Phillies. Cardinals GM John Mozeliak denied that gamesmanship was behind the decision, but at the very least, the club has some precedent on which to build.

During the 1987 NLCS against San Francisco, Giants players were dismayed to find out that their families had been relegated to the far reaches of the ballpark. The incident was referenced briefly in The Baseball Codes; here’s a more robust version of the story:

Giants slugger Jeffrey Leonard introduced the phrase “one flap down” into the American lexicon during the playoffs in 1987. That was the name of the peculiar home-run trot he had devised (but rarely used) the previous season, during which he let his left arm dangle limply at his side while dipping his inside shoulder into the turn at each base. The slugger decided to resurrect the practice after he and teammates noticed that the Cardinals organization placed Giants family members and friends in nosebleed seats for the first playoff game in St. Louis.

“We peeked out of the [Busch Stadium] dugout and saw where they were sitting, and we all got angry,” he said. “So I said to myself, if I hit a home run I’m just going to clown this fool out there.”

Leonard had plenty of opportunities to clown plenty of fools in the coming days, as he hit four homers over the seven-game series—a performance so dominating that he was named series MVP, even though his team lost. For each of those homers, his arm hung low to his side, which infuriated the Cardinals and their fans. (As did the fact that Leonard’s teammate Chili Davis called St. Louis a “cow town” to the press, a comment that got considerable run near the Gateway Arch.)

Leonard had come upon his trot by accident during a 1986 game, after he hit a home run against Chicago’s Scott Sanderson. First base coach Jose Morales, who usually met passing runners with an arm raised for a high-five, this time had his hands at his sides. It wasn’t until Leonard was atop the bag, ready to turn toward second, that Morales’ arm shot into the air in a belated attempt at congratulation. Leonard’s instinctive response was to duck under it, dropping his left shoulder in the process and letting his arm dangle as he rounded the base. Then, for reasons he can’t much explain, he held the pose as he continued the circuit.

The Brewers have plenty of ready-built responses of their own to call upon, starting with various permutations of Beast Mode and ending with Morgan’s T-Plush signs.

They should be wary, however: Leonard was drilled for his actions by Bob Forsch in Game 3 back in ’87; a similar response from Tony La Russa’s Cardinals would hardly be unusual.

Update (10-18): Apparently that wasn’t all of it. Now that the NLCS is complete, we hear that Zack Greinke‘s wife, Emily, was none too pleased with her seats, tweeting during a game in St. Louis that she’d been relegated to a spot down the left-field line. The tweet has since been deleted, but Larry Brown Sports saved the accompanying picture, allegedly shot on location.

- Jason

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by | September 8, 2011 · 10:53 am

Big League Chew: Morgan Pulls Out All the Stops (Among Other Things) to Get into Carpenter’s Head

This is what happens when baseball’s premier red-ass butts heads with one of the game’s loosest cannons. As if there wasn’t enough tension built in to St. Louis’ desperate chase of the Brewers in the waning days of the NL Central, Nyjer Morgan threw decorum—and his chew—to the winds Wednesday, shouting down Chris Carpenter as the Cardinals ace tried to finish a complete-game shutout.

After the right-hander struck out Morgan for the first out of the ninth inning, he directed an inflammatory comment toward the plate (at least according to Morgan), to which the hitter replied—and I lean here on my decades of experience reading lips via sports telecasts—“fuck you.” (Watch it here.)

Morgan, it seems, had been swiping at low-hanging fruit throughout the game, trying to rattle a pitcher who’s proved susceptible to such tactics in the past. To Carpenter’s credit, he didn’t cave.

“He was yelling at me at second base,” said the pitcher in an MLB.com report. “He was yelling at me down the line when he hit the double. The whole game he’s screaming and yelling, the whole game. I’m not going to allow it to happen. I don’t know if that’s the way he plays, to try to get guys out of their game or what. But I’ve been around too long to allow that to happen, I can tell you that much.”

As Morgan strode purposefully back to the dugout following his at-bat, he dismissively tossed his wad of chewing tobacco toward the mound. It didn’t come anywhere close to Carpenter, but that wasn’t Morgan’s intention. It was simply as dismissive a message as he could send in that moment.

Albert Pujols responded by charging in from first base, Prince Fielder raced to restrain Morgan, and the benches emptied. (No punches were thrown or shoves exchanged.) Morgan was eventually tossed by the umpires, at which point he could be heard on the telecast saying, “He said it first, he’s got to go, too.”

Were it only that simple. Morgan knows—and was likely trying to exploit—a history with the Cardinals that dates back to August, 2010, when the outfielder—then with Washington—went out of his way to senselessly collide with Cardinals catcher Bryan Anderson in a non-play at the plate.

That was followed this spring by an exchange that started when Morgan ran into Pujols in a play at first. Morgan and Carpenter got into a verbal spat during a series at Miller Park earlier this season. The teams also had tension over a tit-for-tat hit-batter exchange involving Pujols and Ryan Braun.

Ultimately, Morgan is either genuinely off-kilter or wildly canny, using the tactic of supreme annoyance to get his opponents off their collective game. (The former was bolstered by his recent run-in with fans in San Francisco. The latter has been ably demonstrated for years by A.J. Pierzynski.)

No matter the answer, it comes down to Nyjer being Nyjer. He said after the game that the confrontation “was over with”—but he wasn’t quite telling the truth.

Not long afterward, Morgan sent out a series of tweets referring to Pujols as “Alberta” and saying “She never been n tha ring.” (See below.)

Ozzie Guillen once described Pierzynski this way: “If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less.”

Through Morgan’s tenures in Pittsburgh and Washington, that appeared to be the case with him, as well. The Brewers, however, seem to love the guy.

He’d be well-advised to keep it that way.

Update: Morgan is headed in the wrong direction. Brewers management is not taking kindly to his act.

- Jason

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by | August 3, 2011 · 10:04 am

Hey Jered Weaver, this is Where Message Pitches are Meant to be Delivered

Ryan Braun: not happy with the way things played out.

As far as retaliation goes, it was awkward, it was ugly and if it wasn’t embarrassing to more than one party, then by all rights it should have been.

But at least it got the job done, within the boundaries of reason.

In the bottom of the seventh inning last night, Cardinals reliever Jason Motte wanted to deliver a message to Milwaukee. Brewers reliever Takashi Saito had drilled Albert Pujols a half-inning earlier, in his tender left wrist. It was clearly unintentional, as the rising fastball hit Pujols only after the hitter pulled his hands in to his chest and was spinning toward the backstop.

Sometimes intent doesn’t make a lick of difference. When Pujols goes down, reparations are frequently in order.

Never mind that it was a 7-7 score; when Ryan Braun led off the home half of the inning, Motte got right to it. And whiffed. Braun evaded Motte’s 98 mph inside fastball, which should, for practical purposes, have ended the hostilities. The pitcher had his shot and missed his mark.

This was plate ump Rob Drake‘s moment to step in and put an end to things. Players frequently appreciate some leeway when it comes to umpires’ warnings, at least to the point that each side is allowed their due shot. Drake, however, missed that mark by a mile.

Allowed a second chance, Motte drilled Braun in the ribs with a 97 mph four-seamer. Braun looked stunned after the first effort; when the second one found purchase without a peep from Drake he was downright flabbergasted.

Even at that point, Motte failed to get booted. (He did end up hitting the showers, but only because Tony La Russamade a pitching change. Based on La Russa’s history with these things, it seems likely that Motte started the inning solely because has the best fastball on the team, with the plan being to pull him after one hit batter. “We threw two balls in there real good just to send a message,” the skipper said afterward, in a semi-denial. “If he ducks them, it’s all over and we don’t hit him.”)

Only after Milwaukee skipper Ron Roenicke came out for a chat with Drake—presumably to fill the ump in on all he was missing—were warnings issued to both benches. (It was odd timing on Roenicke’s part; unless he was looking to get Motte retroactively bounced from the game, his discussion served little purpose beyond costing his own pitchers a chance to respond on Braun’s behalf.)

“That was ridiculous,” said Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “We didn’t hit Albert Pujols on purpose. Are you kidding me? In that situation? If we wanted to put him on base, we would have walked him. That’s ridiculous. . . . We shouldn’t get punished for something we weren’t trying to do on purpose. Look at the situation. If we were getting beat by a lot or we were beating them by a lot and that happens, maybe we did it on purpose.  I mean, come on. We weren’t trying to hit anybody. It’s unbelievable.”

Lucroy is entitled to his opinion, but it’s tough to fault a pitcher for protecting his superstar. That Milwaukee’s best player led off the next inning made the timing perfect. That Motte was given two chances by an apparently clueless ump, however, is worth getting ticked off about. If the situation has anything working in its favor, it’s that, unlike Jered Weaver and Carlos Carrasco, Motte came nowhere near his target’s head.

The teams meet again today, then again at the end of the month.

- Jason

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by | July 24, 2011 · 9:40 am

Not Among Friends: The Fine Art of Ignoring Hostile Crowds. Or: Nyjer Morgan, Come on Down!

Forget lefty-on-lefty matchups; there’s one battle a baseball player simply can not win: going nose to nose with any segment of the crowd, particularly on the road. One of the first things a player learns, even in the minors, is to avoid negative engagement at nearly any cost. Bleacher bums like nothing better than turning a minor on-field gesture into a mountain of grief.

This particular lesson continues to evade Nyjer Morgan.

On Friday night in San Francisco, Morgan made a series of running catches in the vast power alleys of AT&T Park to rob the Giants of several extra-base hits. With each grab, the jeering from the center-field bleachers got a little louder. Eventually, Morgan bit.

In the seventh inning, after ranging far to his right to track down a drive by Nate Schierholtz, Morgan ended up bouncing off the wall in left-center. As he jogged back to his position, he spun and made several gestures toward the bleachers widely perceived to be obscene. This served to inspire the crowd, which doubled down on whatever it had been yelling. Morgan spun to face them sporadically through the inning, gesturing all the while (though nothing any more conspicuous than arm waving, chest-thumping and head nodding).

He kept it up all the way to the dugout after the inning, bringing fans in different sections of the ballpark into the action. The act was blatant enough for umpire Joe West to have a word with Milwaukee manager Ron Roenicke. (Watch it all here.)

These kinds of interactions can end up one of two ways. The first example is from Jose Canseco, who was greeted by Boston fans during the 1988 American League Championship Series with chants of “STER-oids, STER-oids.” Canseco, like Morgan, didn’t let it go. He pulled up his sleeve and showed his bicep to the crowd. Then he hit three home runs over the course of Oakland’s four-game sweep.

On the other side of the equation is David Wells. He tells the story himself, in his book, Perfect I’m Not. The scene: the bullpen in Cleveland, where Wells is warming up as a member of the Yankees, prior to a start.

“You’re an asshole, Wells! You suck! Fuck you!” they shout, hanging over the bullpen like a bunch of drunken, potbellied baboons wearing acid-washed jeans. Standard stuff, really. I barely even notice . . . until they shift gears. “Hey, Wells! Your mother’s a whore!” they shout from above, lauhing, and at that point I can’t help but shoot them a glare. Bad move. They’ve struck a nerve, and they know it. Now the jackasses take it up a notch, laying out a long, steady, completely obnoxious string of mom-centered insults, none of which I’ll reprint for you here. I’m dying to break a nose.

More dick-heads join the glee club. More insults get thrown, and by the time I’ve finished my warm-ups, I’m astonished to find that a bunch of little kids, just eight or nine years old, are now mimicking the older morons, reshouting every bit of filth the alpha mooks dish out. The “adults” all crack up at the sight. Welcome to Cleveland, ass-wipe capital of the USA.

It really bothers me. I know it shouldn’t., but it does. Insults aimed at me just roll off with no effect. It’s part of the territory. But here, today, with the rifle sights shifting to my mom, I’ve become furious to the point of distraction. Minutes later, hands still balled into tight, homicidal fists, my head still spinning, I sit in the Yankees’ dugout, stewing and staring, barely cracking a smile, even as my teammates are jumping all over a wild Chad Ogea and gifting me with a quick, 3-0, first-inning lead. In just a few moments, I’ll give most of that back.

Taking the mound to my usual chorus of  boos, I’m now raging inside. Sweating, scowling, still looking to fracture a skull, I’m knocked off my game. I’m distracted. My mechanics are off. My delivery sucks, my fastball is up, and I pay for it all through the first. The assholes have won.

In Morgan’s defense, what was first taken to be an indecent gesture was actually a “T” symbol the outfielder made with his arms—something he does regularly to acknowledge his alter-ego, Tony Plush, or T-Plush.

He also flashed devil horns toward the bleachers, which happens to be the hand sign for two outs—which there were once he retired Schierholtz. He then flashed the sign toward the infield. Standard procedure.

“Just fans being fans, and me being an entertainer,” he told the San Jose Mercury News after the game.

Ultimately, Morgan is innocent of luridness and guilty of stupidity. His gestures, innocent though they may have been, were clearly intended to be provocative. Morgan should know better.

But he doesn’t. Last year, remember, Morgan was suspended for eight games and fined $15,000 after he cursed at Marlins fans in Florida, then initiated a fight with Marlins pitcher Chris Volstad. This came on the heels of a seven-game suspension (later waved) after he allegedly threw a ball at a fan in Philadelphia. (Morgan claimed he threw the ball to the fan.)

So never mind the fact that Morgan told MLB.com that he would alter his “T” sign to avoid future misunderstandings, saying that “we don’t want any controversial stories here.” The guy is a loose cannon, and likely always will be.  On Friday, that personality trait guaranteed him that he will not play another grief-free game in San Francisco in the foreseeable future.

Only he can decide whether it was worth it on a personal level, but institutionally it’s clear. The Code says no.

- Jason

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by | May 28, 2011 · 1:48 pm

Whiteside Shows that Plate Collisions Work Both Ways

Lost amid the recent talk about the propriety of crashing into the catcher is the fact that the catcher is hardly defenseless behind the plate. On late-breaking plays, of course—like the one in which Buster Posey was injured—he has little choice but to absorb whatever punishment is being dished out. But with time to prepare, a catcher has tools at his disposal.

From The Baseball Codes:

I might take a spike in the shoulder, but I’ve got my shin guard in his neck,” said Fred Kendall, who caught in the big leagues for a dozen sea­sons and whose son, Jason, became an All-Star catcher in his own right. “There are ways to counter it, if that’s the way he’s going to play. . . . If I take the baseball and put it in the web of my glove—the web, not the pocket—and I tag you, it’s just like taking a hammer and whacking you in the teeth; if I take my mask off and I throw it right where you’re going to slide; if I place my shin guards the right way, it’s like sliding into a brick wall.

Last night, the Giants received a reminder of this mindset in the most necessary way. Earlier in the day, Posey told reporters that his season was almost certainly over. Then, in the eighth inning against Milwaukee, Prince Fielder tried to score from second base on a two-out single.

The throw from left fielder Cody Ross came in on one hop, well in time and plenty high for Eli Whiteside—two days ago the Giants’ backup catcher, but now their starter—to brace for impact.

He did more than that.

Protecting his mitt with his bare hand, Whiteside lunged toward Fielder, taking the impact to the runner, punching him in the chest with the baseball as Fielder went flying. As Whiteside scrambled to his feet and saw umpire Mike Muchilinski call the runner out, he held out the ball, then flipped it insouciantly past Fielder toward the mound. (Watch it here.)

That it came at Fielder’s expense was merely bonus (if you forget why, click here). This was a message from Whiteside to his teammates, not to the Brewers: We are strong, we are resilient, and we are badass.

San Francisco’s chances to defend their title took a grave hit when Posey went down. But credit Whiteside for this: What he did was the mark of a champion.

- Jason

 

 

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by | April 29, 2011 · 10:09 am

Cubs Skipper Quade Serving as One-Man Code Army

Mike Quade: Needing a copy of the Brewers' and Dodgers' unwritten rulebooks.

One thing we’ve learned for certain so far this young season: Cubs manager Mike Quade is a fan of the unwritten rules. He gets bothered when they’re broken on his watch, and he’s willing to call out those who diminish their importance or ignore them altogether.

First, it was Brewers skipper Ron Roenicke, who inserted pinch-runner Carlos Gomez into the eighth inning of a game in which his team led 5-0, then watched unapologetically as Gomez stole two bases.

“These unwritten rules—everybody has their own interpretation,” said Quade. Sometimes when interpretations differ, that’s when you run into trouble.”

Funny that “run into to trouble” is the phrase he chose.

Not two weeks later, Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis did literally that when he tried to swipe a base with his team holding an 8-1 lead in the fifth.

This seems like a good place to get into Quade’s notion of differing interpretations. When Gomez ran against the Cubs, his team’s 5-0 lead was considered insufficient by Roenicke to shut down his running game, but the eighth inning is without question an appropriate timeframe to have done so.

When Ellis swiped his base, the criteria were reversed; there’s little argument that an 8-1 lead is well within the boundaries of “safe,” but the fifth inning might be considered a touch early for some managers to call off the dogs.

“I do think I probably need to get a copy of the Milwaukee and L.A. unwritten rules books, too, unless they missed a sign,” said Quade.

As it turns out, that’s precisely what happened. After the game, Ellis and Dodgers manager Don Mattingly both confessed as much; Mattingly said his sign to third-base coach Tim Wallach was “missed” (whatever that actually means), and off went Ellis, possessor of zero prior steals over parts of four big league seasons.

The play was somewhat mitigated by the fact that Ellis was thrown out. It may also have been mitigated when the Dodgers sent Ellis to Triple-A Albuquerque days later.

Still, said Mattingly, “We knew when it happened, we figured they’d be irritated.”

Ellis’ steal brought to mind another Dodgers youngster who stole another base in an inappropriate situation. In the case of Roger Cedeno, however, there was no missed sign. From the Baseball Codes:

In a game in 1996, the Giants trailed Los Angeles 11–2 in the ninth inning, and decided to station first baseman Mark Carreon at his normal depth, ignoring the runner at first, Roger Cedeno. When Cedeno, just twenty-one years old and in his first April as a big-leaguer, saw that nobody was bothering to hold him on, he headed for second—by any interpretation a horrible decision.

As the runner, safe, dusted himself off, Giants third baseman Matt Williams lit into him verbally, as did second baseman Steve Scarsone, left fielder Mel Hall, and manager Dusty Baker. Williams grew so heated that several teammates raced over to restrain him from going after the young Dodgers outfielder.

The least happy person on the field, however, wasn’t even a member of the Giants—it was Dodgers hitter Eric Karros, who stepped out of the batter’s box in disbelief when Cedeno took off. Karros would have disap­proved even as an impartial observer, but as the guy who now had a pissed-off pitcher to deal with, he found his thoughts alternating between anger toward Cedeno and preparing to evade the fastball he felt certain was headed his way. (“I was trying to figure if I was going to [duck] for­ward or go back,” said Karros after the game. “It was a 50–50 shot.”) Giants pitcher Doug Creek, however, in a display of egalitarian diplo­macy, left Karros unmarked, choosing instead to let the Giants inflict whatever retribution they saw fit directly upon Cedeno. (Because it was the ninth inning, nothing happened during that particular game.)

At second base, Scarsone asked Cedeno if he thought it was a full count, and the outfielder responded that, no, he was just confused. “If he’s that confused, somebody ought to give him a manual on how to play baseball,” said Baker after the game. “I’ve never seen anybody that con­fused.”

In the end, it was Karros who saved Cedeno. When he stepped out of the box, as members of the Giants harangued the bewildered baserunner, Karros didn’t simply watch idly—he turned toward the San Francisco bench and informed them that Cedeno had run without a shred of insti­tutional authority, and that Karros himself would ensure that justice was administered once the game ended. Sure enough, as Cedeno sat at his locker after the game, it was obvious to observers that he had been crying. Though the young player refused to comment, it appeared that Karros had been true to his word. “Ignorance and youth really aren’t any excuse,” said Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza, “but we were able to cool things down.”

- Jason

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by | April 20, 2011 · 12:09 am

Ron Roenicke and the Unwritten Rules

With Brewers manager Ron Roenicke in the news recently for inserting Carlos Gomez as a pinch-runner while holding a 5-0, eighth-inning lead over the Cubs, it seems an appropriate time to run the bulk of an interview we did with him in June 2006, for the Baseball Codes.

Many of Roenicke’s answers echo precisely what he said in the wake of the Gomez incident. I’m including the rest of the conversation because it’s so wide ranging, and because Roenicke has such clear opinions on the subject.

Roenicke was a coach on Mike Scioscia’s staff with the Angels at the time of the interview.

On the difference between the unwritten rules in the minor leagues and the major leagues:

It’s different when you talk about the minor leagues and the major leagues, because in the major leagues you’re there to win games. Yes, you don’t want to show anybody up, but your first responsibility is to your team. In the minor leagues—and here we’re talking about the stealing, not so much the 3-0 swinging—you’re trying to develop people.

Say you’re trying to develop a base stealer. Say he hasn’t gotten an opportunity to steal a base in a week. Now, the one time he gets on, you are up 8-0 in the sixth inning. Well, here’s his opportunity to practice, to learn how to steal a base, and yet you’re up by a lead where you usually wouldn’t run.

I tried to talk to the other manager before we played and tell them how I felt, so if that situation came up they knew, hey, I’m not stealing this to try to show you up. I’m not trying to increase the score of the game, or see how many runs we can score. I’m trying to develop these players; that’s our goal in the minor leagues.

In my second year managing I was in the California League, and we were playing the Padres’ A-Ball team, Rancho Cucamonga. Marty Barrett was managing them. I introduced myself to Marty before the game and said, “Hey, Marty, I’ve got some guys who need to learn how to steal. If we’re up by a lot of runs early in the game we’re going to keep going. I don’t know how you feel, but I won’t be offended or take it personally if you steal some guys who need to work on it, too.” He says, “Oh yeah, no problem.”

Well, we’re bashing the ball. We’re up 9-2 in the second inning, we get a guy on and we steal him. Marty goes bananas—he’s all ticked off at me. That stuff happens in the game.

The score ended up being 9-8, and Derek Lee was at the plate with two guys on, and he flew out to the fence. So that wasn’t a comfort zone for us. If you’ve been to Rancho Cucamonga, you know can score some runs in that ballpark.

What’s the ultimate yardstick for knowing when to back off?

It comes down to your responsibility. How many runs do you know that you need to win that ballgame that night?

When I came up (to the big leagues, with the Dodgers in 1981) they always told me, eighth or ninth inning, if you’re up by five runs you don’t steal any more. That was the unwritten rule. But today’s games have changed that. There weren’t the run totals we have now. I came up with the Dodgers, which was a hard park to hit in, and our pitching staff was so good, rarely did you score five runs in a game. Now, five runs in an inning happens almost every night in some ballpark.

Any individual night may be different from the night before. Maybe your stopper’s been in three games in a row and can’t pitch that night, so you don’t have that sure guy you can go to in the last inning. You want more runs.

Now the opposing team may not know that, so there comes the battle where they get ticked off about something you do, and maybe you’re doing it just because you know you’ve got a couple of guys you really can’t bring into the ball game.

Do you ever have to explain to the opposition why you did something the way you did?

Once in a while there’s a phone call made between managers. It doesn’t happen often, but once or twice a year you get a call, or you call the other side and say, “Hey, listen, I’m not trying to show anybody up, but this was our situation, this is why it happened.”

You do this because something happens during the game where you see their whole staff standing up and the players are ticked off and yelling something. Sometimes you need to explain that.

How do you deal with it when it makes sense for you—your pen is gassed, you want the extra run and they’re yelling? Do you feel the need to get them back for something you felt was justified?

If they retaliate, I’m mad. I’m going to talk to that manager. I don’t know anybody managing the game in the big leagues that would try to purposely show up the other team. I really don’t. If that guy is stealing, I think there’s a reason he’s stealing.

Now sometimes a player doesn’t know, and he just takes off, but that doesn’t come from the manager. But if it’s the manager, I don’t believe there’s anybody saying, “We’re going to abuse these guys, let’s score as many runs as we can.” I’ve never been around anybody like that. So, if somebody is doing it, and we’re on the other side, I rarely see Mike (Scioscia) that upset about when they do something that maybe we think they should not be doing.

If it’s stealing, we’re looking at it and saying, “They’re not comfortable with the lead they have; they think they need more runs.” That’s saying a lot for our team—they’re saying they think we’ve got a pretty good offense.

People who get mad about stuff, I don’t understand it. There’s no way Mike is ever going to show up somebody. If he runs, it’s because he knows we need more runs on the board to win the ball game.

Have you ever had to take one of your own guys aside and tell him to cool it?

Sure. Bunting for a base hit when you’re up by a lot of runs and you aren’t a bunter. If you’re Chone Figgins, it depends on the score, but if it’s five or six runs up I’m OK with Figgins bunting. But if Garret Anderson or Vladdy (Guerrero) is in a slump and guys are way back on the grass and they bunt for a hit, I don’t like that.

I thought Figgins would bunt last night. [In the eighth inning of a game against Matt Cain of the Giants, Figgins singled to center for his team’s first hit in a game the Giants led 2-1.]

You mean, when he got the hit to break up the no-hitter? That’s another unwritten rule—do you bunt to break up a no-hitter?

If you’re Chone Figgins and it’s a one-run game, I think you do.

Well, that’s the thing—are we trying to win this game, or are we trying to ignore the unwritten rule to bunt and break up a no-hitter?

It’s not your job to preserve it.

It isn’t, but that’s another one of the rules. If we’re in the fifth or sixth inning and he bunts, that’s fine, but if you get to the eighth or ninth, most people would say he’s not supposed to bunt for a base hit. But for me, that’s part of his game, and it’s OK. You talk to a lot of managers who say it’s not.

It’s different if it’s San Diego [a reference to Ben Davis breaking up Curt Schilling’s perfect game in 2001].

Yeah, bunting isn’t part of his game, and I don’t know if I like that.

Why, if you have one hit and it’s 2-1 in the eighth, would it conceivably be no problem for Figgins to bunt in an effort to be the tying run, but not when it’s 1-0 and you have no hits?

You’re right. I’m not saying it’s wrong to do it—it’s just one of those unwritten rules. You have to hit the ball to break up a no-hitter late in the game.

Do you recall, from playing days, having anyone on your team or the other team so blatantly violate a unwritten rule that either your manager or pitching staff decided it required retaliation?

It happened more when I played. Most of the time when somebody was thrown at it was because of what they did at the plate, maybe on a long home run. Now everybody (watches home runs) so nobody seems to care, but back then if you hit a home run, you didn’t stand there and watch it. It was that or breaking up two, going in cleats high. Those were the things that people got hit for.

On bunting against Nolan Ryan:

I bunted one time against Nolan Ryan. Now, I didn’t know. It was my second year in the big leagues, and I didn’t know. I didn’t get a hit, although I was bunting for a hit. I came back to the bench, and Mark Belanger was with us that one year, his final year, playing with the Dodgers. He said “Ron, just so you know, Nolan, when he was in the American League, if you bunted on him, the next time he threw at you.”

So I’m like, “Oh, great.” We played him three weeks later, and I’m worried about that first pitch, and he just threw a fastball right down the middle. He probably didn’t know who I was, and it didn’t matter to him.

Any other guys have private rules?

You didn’t dig in against anybody back then. The way guys dig in now, they’d be hit automatically by 90 percent of the pitchers back then. Same thing with home runs.

If you got hit and you were at fault, you just put your head down and went to first. If your teammates saw you hit a home run and watch it, your own teammates were mad because they knew somebody was going to get hit, and there were eight of them hitting before you got up. Sometimes they waited until you hit again, sometimes they hit the next guy. It depended on who the pitcher was.

Nolan, obviously, had a reputation. Pedro Martinez—I was just starting to coach when he came up. Before me, obviously, Gibson and Drysdale were the worst.

How about Steve Carlton?

I played with him. Now, Lefty was mean. If you hit a home run and you looked at it, then yeah, you were gonna get it. Most guys were like that, and Lefty didn’t care who it was.

Lefty was kind of a stickler for the unwritten rules. Yeah, he was a mean competitor. There were certain guys that you just knew you couldn’t get away with stuff that you might get away with elsewhere. When you got into the box, you knew who was pitching, and you’d better do the right thing. They had that reputation. You didn’t mess around and get them mad at you.

My brother (former big leaguer Gary Roenicke) got hit in the mouth by Lerin LaGrow, and Lerin was known to hit people. He got hit opening day in Oakland.

My brother didn’t do anything to precipitate it; it was out of the blue. I’m not saying it was on purpose—it was out of the shadows and Gary said he never saw it coming. He wore a face mask the rest of the year, and he got drilled all the time. Pitchers tried to intimidate him.

I can remember some teammates, if they were thrown at during a game, that was it. They were done. They weren’t going to get a hit that game. And, I can remember other guys—you throw at Steve Garvey, I guarantee he was going to hit a bullet somewhere. He would grab that helmet, throw it on his head, get back in there and have a great at-bat.

Not too many guys can last in the major leagues if they can’t handle being thrown at, but some guys just didn’t know—they’d face one team and get throw at, but other teams didn’t try it. Guys didn’t talk that much back then. If you knew something about a guy, you’d keep it to yourself and have the advantage.

On learning the Code:

It was the veteran players who took you aside. When I first came up I can remember Rick Monday telling me, “Just keep your mouth shut and learn how to play the game.” He was right. I sat there. He knew I wasn’t a starter, and he wasn’t anymore, either. He took care of me more than anybody—him and Terry Forster. They took care of the young guys. Not just telling them what to do, but taking them out to dinner and teaching them how to be professional—really helping their careers.

Youth and money can be a volatile mix.

I think it’s gotten to the point where you can’t do it anymore (teach kids how to act on the road, and etc.). We’ve created a monster. The way things have evolved, it’s not just when you get to the big leagues, now—it’s also the minor league stuff. It’s the huge bonuses. The game has really changed.

The first time I saw it was with Steve Sax. He was the first rookie that stepped into the big leagues and got away with the stuff he got away with, with a sense of entitlement. I was waiting for Reggie (Smith) and Dusty (Baker) and (Ron) Cey and (Steve) Garvey to just grab him by the throat and put him up against the wall. For some reason, he got away with it.

He was making fun of the old guys, not paying attention during the ballgame, goofing around somewhere. Now he played a lot, but at the very beginning, maybe when he wasn’t in there every day, they told me, “You’re on the bench, you’re watching what’s going on, you’re talking to other veterans—you are at work.”

Now, Saxy, it’s his personality—he couldn’t sit still that long. He was off screwing around, playing practical jokes on the veterans—which you just did not do—and he got away with it. He was one funny guy, and I don’t know if it was because the guys liked that humor around, or what. He was the first guy I saw get away with it.

It gradually changed, and now a rookie steps into the big leagues and can do whatever he wants. There’s no, “Hey, that’s my seat,” or, “Rook, you sit in the front of the bus.” Now, you do whatever you want to do.

Players respected the game more back when we played, and probably 20 years before we played they respected it more than we did. I don’t know.

I think the money has really changed how people inside the game view the game. Now it’s a vehicle to wealth. There aren’t too many guys who play just for the love of the game. That’s a shame, but it’s true.

That’s why, when you have those (David) Ecksteins and (Darin) Erstads, they’re so rare. Vladimir, too. Vladimir absolutely loves to play baseball. I don’t think it would matter what he’s getting paid. He loves to play, and you can see it. You can see it in the dugout, you can see it in the locker room, you can see it out there in front of people.

So there are still a few—not many—that do play that way.

Are the guys who love the game the ones who automatically live by these rules?

A lot more so. Not always, not everything, but a lot more. As a staff, that’s what you want from everybody—you want everybody to feel that same way. Because it has changed so much, it has to be harder to be a coach now than it was before, with players and what their priorities are.

- Jason

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