It’d be easy to think that the Mets threw at Rhys Hoskins on Tuesday in response to the passel of New York hitters—five in five games, including two a day earlier—drilled by the Phillies over the early part of the season. As is frequently the way with these kinds of things, however, there’s more to the story. There was another trigger, too, far more central to baseball’s unwritten rules.
It happened during the sixth inning of Tuesday night’s game, with the Mets leading, 8-0—the kind of score that mandates its own unwritten rules about piling on. The idea, of course, has to do with restraint from embarrassing an opponent you’re already beating soundly.
There has always been debate about how big a lead is sufficient to take one’s foot off the gas, and at what point in the game it should happen. The Mets clearly felt that eight runs in the sixth was within those boundaries. As such, after J.T. Realmuto singled to center with one out, New York first baseman Pete Alonso opted against holding him on as a matter of professional courtesy. At that point in the game, the Mets were gearing toward ending things as quickly as possible, letting players on both teams get home to regroup and go at it again fresh the following day. Positioning Alonso in the hole, where he could cover more ground, was a step in that direction. The expectation was that the Phillies would not take advantage.
Realmuto took off on the first pitch.
This, according to some in the New York dugout, flew against the code. It’s an interesting dynamic, this idea of not pressing the issue. The impetus is pure—respect for an opponent who’s having a bad day—but its execution can sometimes be confusing. What if the Phillies disagreed that the sixth inning was too early to give up their running game? What if the 12 outs remaining seemed like a reasonable number with which to stage a rally or two? With guys like Hoskins and Bryce Harper in the lineup, scoring batches of runs was not out of the question.
The other possibility is that Realmuto, not being held on and with second base an easy 90 feet away, decided to run of his own accord. Despite nothing happening on the play—Hoskins fouled the ball off and Realmuto returned to first—the Mets were displeased. Rather than opt for a message pitch, they responded with some of the same. After the Phillies went down in order, with Realmuto failing to advance, New York found itself in a similar situation during the bottom half of the frame: Juan Lagares on first base with two outs. With the Phillies also opting against holding the runner, Lagares motored into third base on Robinson Cano’s single, despite the unwritten rule mandating that teams holding huge leads play station-to-station baseball, advancing only one base on a single, two on a double, etc.
Now it was the Phillies’ turn to be angry. New York’s next hitter, Michael Conforto, walked on four pitches, primarily because two of them appeared to have been intentionally thrown up and in. At first base, Hoskins discussed the situation with Conforto.
In a tit-for-tat world of code violations and the responses to them, the ledger appeared to be even. Then, with two outs in the ninth—the Mets having increased their lead to 9-0 on a single that drove in Legares from third (which wouldn’t have happened had he held at second)—Mets reliever Jacob Rhame threw a 97-mph, first-pitch fastball directly at Hoskins’ head. (Watch it here.)
That the hitter was able to duck out of the way helped prevent the situation from exploding, but only some. The delivery of a fastball above the shoulders is never acceptable in modern baseball, especially in response to an event that already appeared to have been answered. (For those who point to the dual HBPs the previous day as potential impetus, both were clearly unintentional. One loaded the bases, and the other, with the bases already loaded, drove in a run.)
Hoskins, angry, took a step toward the mound, triggering players from both dugouts to prepare to charge. Plate ump Scott Barry, however, quickly took control of the situation, issuing blanket warnings. Hoskins ended up walking on six pitches, every ball outside the strike zone coming in high and inside. He gave Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud an earful while making his way to first base.
“I don’t get it,” said Bryce Harper after the game, in the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I understand that two of their guys got hit yesterday, but, I mean, if it’s baseball and you’re going to drill somebody, at least hit him in the ass. Not in the head. You throw 98, it’s scary now. You could kill somebody. Lose your eyesight. That’s bigger than the game.”
It’s possible that Rhame was wild, as he claimed after the game—although that sort of denial is standard fare—especially given that he walked two of the four batters he faced, with 10 of his 19 pitches coming in outside the strike zone. Even if this is true, however, he’d find few defenders in Philadelphia’s clubhouse.
“He didn’t miss up and in or out and up to a lefty the rest of the inning, so I’ll let you decide,” said Hoskins after the game. “But I understand baseball. They got hit a couple of times yesterday.”
If there’s a happy ending to this story, it’s that Hoskins was able to exact retaliation of his own, homering in the ninth inning of Wednesday’s game, against Rhame of all people.
That was the first part of his revenge. The second part was a glacially slow trot around the bases—at 34.2 seconds, the slowest in the five years since Statcast has been tracking such things. (It is also the longest such circuit in the history of TaterTrotTracker, which ceased tracking tater trots in 2016, save for one by Luke Scott, who was injured as he rounded the bases.)
To Rhame’s credit, he calmly rolled with the insult.
“He got me,” the pitcher told reporters after the game. “If I make a better pitch, he doesn’t get to run the bases. It’s his job, man. I’m not really thinking about any of that. … Going through my mind is, I shouldn’t throw one right down the middle to him. That’s about it.”
This will hopefully be it for this episode of Bad Blood Central, NL East Edition. The Mets and Phillies next meet in late June.
Update (4-26): Rhame has been suspended for two games.
The Baseball Codes 
As an avid baseball fan since 1975, I thought I had a good handle on the Code. But this is the first I’ve heard of the *trailing* team not being permitted to run when not being held on. It’s pretty simple…hold the runner, he’s never going to run down 8. Play behind him, you’re conceding the base. No? Since when does the leading team dictate to the trailing team when they should give up?
Jason…you’ve always got a good prior story ready in the chamber for any situation…what have you got for this?
The idea is even-handed: If a team isn’t holding you on, you don’t take advantage. Teams on the right end of a blowout are the ones we hear about far more frequently, but it does work both ways. I don’t have a ton of stories about the latter, but there’s one about Conor Jackson, then of the Diamondbacks, trying to steal while his team trailed Houston, 10-4 in 2007, with two outs in the ninth. The ball was fouled off, so Houston had a chance to respond … which it did by pitching out on the very next pitch — with two outs, in the ninth inning of a blowout game. Tony Clark ended up whiffing to end it, but D’Backs manager Bob Melvin wasn’t thrilled.