Tag: Cincinnati Reds

Celebrations

Garrett Suspension Shows Exactly What Kind Of Celebration MLB Is Promoting, And What Kind Of Celebration It Is Not

Posted on by Jason Turbow

By handing down a seven-game suspension to Amir Garrett, Major League Baseball has thoroughly muddied the waters about what it wants to see from players when it comes to celebrations.

On Saturday, Garrett punctuated a strikeout of Anthony Rizzo by yelling at the batter, a one-on-one confrontation taken by those in the Cubs dugout as disrespectful. It’s not difficult to understand where they were coming from. It was disrespectful. So disrespectful that Javy Baez vaulted the dugout railing and charged the field.

Given that Garrett was subsequently suspended for seven games and Baez only ended up with a fine, MLB is clear in who it holds culpable. Except that Garrett didn’t put anybody in danger; the physical confrontation was prompted by Baez. MLB ruled similarly earlier in the month when it suspended Nick Castellanos for flexing over pitcher Jake Woodford, punishment that would have almost certainly been absent had not Yadier Molina reacted by pushing Castellanos from behind. For that, Castellanos was suspended for two games while Molina got off scott free.

Garrett’s suspension leads to a question similar to those raised following the Castellanos incident: Had Baez not responded, and had Rizzo returned to the dugout as he was already doing, would the league have handed down any discipline at all? Not damn likely.

So we’re left to guess. Bat flips have recently gone mainstream, in no small part because the league officially adopted them as part of its play-up-the-personalities campaign. A decade ago, however, they were seen as disrespectful. Had an incensed opponent charged the field in response to one, who would the league have held to account? According to the current structure, it’d be the bat flipper himself.

At least the decision to suspend Garrett more or less lines up with the way players see things on the field. Pitchers mostly don’t take offense to bat flips, and hitters mostly do take offense to being yelled at after they strike out. That’s because what Garrett did is genuinely offensive, and bat flipping is not.

People keep talking about how reactions like Garrett’s and Castellanos’ are standard fare in the NBA, and wonder why baseball so breathlessly tries to tamp down such behavior. There are a few reasons for this. For one thing, short of starting a fight there’s no such thing as retaliation in the NBA—not in the sense of a pitcher throwing at a hitter, anyway. Also, action waits for no man, and there’s not much time during a basketball game to consider somebody’s words. Guys can jaw all they want, but by the time the guys they’re insulting have formulated a response they’re already heading back down the floor. In the NFL, end-zone dances have become commonplace, but teams continue to get flagged for taunting should they cross that particular line.

What MLB wants here is obvious: Feel-good celebrations that can be marketed to a baseball-centric crowd. Even Garrett’s own “rock the baby” motion, which he does after getting a big out—putting the opponent to sleep or whatnot—has not been taken too personally by opponents.

What MLB does not want is just as obvious: A turn toward the NBA. How do we know? Because if this was really about guys stoking dangerous situations, then the players responsible for physical confrontations—Baez and Molina, respectively—would be punished in ways similar to or exceeding the revelers. That didn’t happen.

The league office has spoken, so listen up. Keep it clean, baseballers, and celebrate at your own pace so long as you stay on the proper side of the league-designated line.

And if by chance you don’t know where that line is drawn, they’ll be sure to tell you.

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Celebrations

As April Ends, Pitchers Take Celebrations To New, Infuriating Level

Posted on by Jason Turbow

On one hand, there’s Let the Kids Play, wherein major league hitters are given leeway by the home office to preen and bat flip, free of judgement and repercussion. Pitchers have responded to this informal edict by beginning in increasing numbers to celebrate similarly, particularly following big strikeouts.

The equity of the system is logical, although observing logic has never been a strong suit for ballplayers. The topic has come up several times over the last week alone.

It started with Trevor Bauer vs. Fernando Tatis, which set the bar pretty high. After Tatis doubled down against Bauer, making fun of the pitcher’s previous antics as part of two home run trots in the same game, Bauer credited him publicly for his efforts. (Tatis’ alleged peeking: not so much.)

When the celebrations spun in the opposite direction, however, things got salty.

Start on Friday, when Philadelphia pitcher Jose Alvarado rejoiced after fanning Mets left fielder Dominic Smith to end the eighth inning in what would be a 2-1 Phillies victory. Alvarado spun toward second base and did a couple of low-slung flex pumps, then turned back to the plate and continued the act. Smith took exception and benches cleared.

On Saturday, Cincinnati’s Amir Garrett acted similarly, so angering the Cubs that Javier Báez —who wasn’t even on the field—hopped the railing to approach the pitcher, spurring another dugout-emptying incident.

There is, of course, one notable difference between the Tatis incident and the latter two.

Start with Alvarado, who came into the game irked after being chirped at by the Mets on April 13 for two pitches to Michael Conforto—one of which ended up near Conforto’s head, the other of which hit him. Among the loudest voices in New York’s dugout that day was Dominic Smith.

So when the pitcher fanned Smith in a big moment, he let Smith know all about it. Alvarado shouted at the hitter as they walked off the field, then did a you-talk-too-much pantomime with his hand when Smith responded. At that point, the two approached each other with an abundance of macho posturing and not much will to actually fight. (After the game, Smith did offer to meet Alvarado under the stands “if he really wants to get after it.”)

Garrett’s incident was similar. After fanning Anthony Rizzo, Garrett pounded his chest and yelled directly at the hitter. Again, history fueled his decision. Garrett, for whom displays of emotion are commonplace, pulled a similar act with Báez in 2018, and spurred a similar incident with Chicago’s Kyle Schwarber in 2019.

This is where we delve further into the gray area that is Major League Baseball in 2021. Are celebrations to be tolerated? According to the league, as well as to the majority of pitchers tasked with enforcing decorum, they are. So now we must ask what types of celebrations are to be tolerated.

What Tatis pulled against Bauer is apparently kosher, mostly because the pitcher deemed it so. The reasons he did this are obvious: Bauer has long been an outspoken proponent of bringing life to the sport via personal flair, and is even-handed with his opinions about who gets to exhibit said flair, even when he’s on the wrong end of it. Even more importantly, Tatits’ stylings, while aimed at Bauer, were also playful and firmly rooted in memes that the pitcher himself had started.

Alvarado and Garrett, on the other hand, were firmly focused on showing up the opposition. Their intentions were obvious and petty, and the responses they elicited should not have been difficult to predict. Which may have been the point.

Báez, a man known for his own celebratory prowess, laid down the opinion for his caucus after Saturday’s game.

“I’m not going to let [Garrett] or anyone disrespect my teammates or my team,” Báez said in a Chicago Tribune report. “It was not a big situation. I’m going to try to stay professional with this but … he needs to respect the game. If you don’t respect the game and if you don’t respect us, then that’s going to happen. Because he’s doing it to us. He’s not doing it to his teammates to pump them (up).”

So it seems that the answer to the question about where we are, exactly, on this topic is … we still don’t know. The underlying tenet of baseball’s unwritten rules, be they the modern-day version or the buttoned-up overkill from generations past, is respect. The threshold has changed markedly, but it still exists, and lines continue to be crossed. With attitudes shifting so quickly, it’s now mostly a matter of keeping up with where things stand at any given moment.

The Phillies and Reds gave us some clear-cut examples. Hitters have achieved so much celebratory leeway that it’s now pitchers who tend to give us pause. This might be because they don’t have a home run to admire or a trot to enact; their focal point for strikeout success is and will forever be the plate. Frequently their theatrics don’t mean anything more than the theatrics from their offensive counterparts … but sometimes they do. To judge by last week, some pitchers may hav trouble distinguishing bat flips from direct, one-on-one showdowns. (For what it’s worth, MLB agrees that what Alvarado did was not Letting the Kids Play: the pitcher was subsequently suspended for three games.)

In this context, I can’t help thinking that Báez’s response to Garrett sounds remarkably similar to comments from players of previous generations who were busy decrying things like sideburns or pants being worn too long. You know: Kids these days.

The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same.

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Intimidation, Retaliation

Flex Time In Cincy Ends In Ludicrous Suspension

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Nick Castellanos dislikes getting hit by pitches, and was in especially fine form on Saturday in that regard. There are plenty of cues pointing toward why his drilling by St. Louis reliever Jake Woodford may have been intentional. It was the first pitch of an at-bat (check) that came with two outs and nobody on base (check and check) after the Cards had already been forced to dip into their bullpen in the third inning (not necessarily a check, but let’s go with it anyway). There’s also the detail that the quickest way for a rookie like Woodford to ingratiate himself with veteran teammates is to carry out retaliatory strikes on their behalf. Also, it sure looked intentional.

Why would Woodford be gunning for Castellanos? Could be that the right-hander—or some of his teammates—was ticked off about Catstellano’s home run pimping from opening day. (Are we in for another season of random pitchers throwing fits over Letting the Kids Play? Might could be.)

After being hit by a fastball, Castellanos chatted with St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina, took his time removing his PPE and went out of his way for the unnecessary step of offering the ball back to Woodford. Was that disrespectful? Some in the St. Louis dugout thought so. More on that in a moment.

Castellanos went to third on a single and scored on a wild pitch, after which he made sure to flex over Woodford, who was on the ground after covering the plate on the play. That was likely where things would have ended had everybody let it play out. Apart from the play itself, Castellanos didn’t touch Woodford, and was returning to his dugout when Molina raced over and shoved him from behind. Why? According to starting pitcher Adam Wainwright, it was all about offering the ball back to Woodford. “That’s tired,” Wainwright said after the game.

Nothing much came of Molina’s shove save for some action in the outfield that cropped up among relief pitchers. Castellanos was ejected, but Molina—despite being the one getting physical—remained in the game. Crew chief Jim Reynolds explained the decision as Castellanos having “re-engaged the pitcher in unnecessary fashion.” So he was tossed for showboating, which is either a one-off Jim Reynolds thing or a new directive from MLB.

The league’s official response—suspending Castellanos for two games—further muddies the waters. Given that neither Woodford (whose intent behind the pitch is under legitimate question) or Molina (the guy who shoved first) were similarly suspended is beyond logic. Beyond his initial flex, Castellanos was effectively a bystander for the ensuing melee. These decisions lead to questions about whether Castellanos’ actions would have been worthy of ejection or suspension had Molina not made things physical, and how this precedent all might affect similar judgement calls in the future.

Nothing further came of the incident in Sunday’s series closer, but it’s a long season. These teams face each other 16 more times, including again later this month.

Castellanos may have gotten boned by the league ruling, but at least he came up with the line of the day. In response to a question about Molina having shoved him, he said: “That guy could punch me in the face and I’d still ask him for a signed jersey.”

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Celebrations

Well, That’s A Celebration We Haven’t Seen Before

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Now that we’re in the full throes of Let the Kids Play, the kids are playing more than ever. On one hand, we have Fernando Tatis Jr. swinging 3-0 for a late-game, blowout grand slam, which seemed to coalesce public opinion about just how ludicrous some of baseball’s unwritten rules can be.

On the other hand, Tatis was actually playing the game. MLB’s marketing slogan was, at the time of its release, geared more toward allowing a greater degree of celebration into the game. Bat flips and whatnot.

It is in that vein that we bring you Trevor Bauer, who celebrated a strikeout on Monday by pretending to open a beer on the mound. Bauer has long been outspoken about his support for emotional displays on the field, be they from pitchers or hitters. This, though, was so much more than that.

Prior to his pantomime, Bauer wrote the word “BUDS” on the back on the mound with his toe. What did it all mean?

It started on Aug. 14, when the Reds tweeted about Sonny Gray setting a team record with 45 strikeouts over his first five starts. Bauer’s succinct response in accepting a challenge: “Hold my beer.”

That was all it took. Because we live in a marketing-driven world and because Bauer is extremely online, Budweiser replied accordingly.

The guess here is that Bauer would have engaged with far less provocation. As it was, he jumped all over this corporate offering.

This, then, is how we end up with “BUDS” on the back of the mound …

… and with Bauer opening an imaginary beer to celebrate his 46th strikeout over five starts. (By game’s end, Bauer would have eight whiffs, and 49 on the season.

As it happened, his opponent that day was the Milwaukee Brewers. Could they be mad? Probably, but given that the pitcher’s pantomime had everything to do with Budweiser and nothing to do with them, it’s difficult to see this going much further. (No sign yet of actual Cincinnati Buds beer cans, as far as I can tell.)

Let the kids play. Then let them drink. Sometimes at the same time.

Update 8/27: The Buds have arrived.

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Sign stealing

Bauer Ensures That His Signs Won’t Be Stolen By Telling Opponent What’s Coming

Posted on by Jason Turbow

For every pitcher-catcher combo trying to figure out the most effective method of circumventing the Astros Way to Play Baseball, Trevor Bauer is here to tell you that your endlessly cycled signs, no matter how complex or arcane, are still no match for the proven system he employed in the Cactus League yesterday.

Facing the Dodgers, Bauer decided to let the hitter know exactly what was coming. He did this via the standard glove signs that pitchers give to catchers during warm-ups. If everything’s public, there’s nothing to steal.

In the top of the fourth inning, Bauer fed Matt Beaty a series of pitches, each preceded by a glove flip. Why Beaty? Maybe because he was the first batter Bauer faced. Or maybe Because because he’d already homered, against Reds starter Sonny Gray, and one thing Bauer likes nearly as much as a soapbox is a challenge. (Bauer made his feelings about Houston’s shenanigans very clear in an interview with The Athletic about two weeks ago.) Beaty ultimately flied out to center field.

The pitcher’s rationale was explained by Derek Dietrich in an in-game interview.

“If you’ve followed baseball this off-season, there’s a little thing going on with sign stealing,” Dietrich said. “Trevor’s not too fond of it, so he figured he’s gonna try something new this season, and he’s gonna start telling batters what’s coming—just, here it comes, try to hit it.”

It’s not quite the same as Nolan Ryan’s strategy during a game in 1973, but it’s in the same ballpark. Unlike Bauer, Ryan didn’t reveal his pitch selection to Tigers in advance, but, concerned about Detroit spies, he devised his own system. Whatever sign Angels catcher Art Kusnyer put down, Ryan ignored it entirely. Instead, he touched the back of his cap to tell Kusnyer that he would be throwing a fastball, the bill if he was going to the curve. As an experiment in subterfuge it worked out okay: Ryan ended up with the second no-hitter of his career.

Would Bauer’s system work in extended use during a regular-season game? Of course not. But if anybody in baseball might try to figure out an efficient reverse-sign a la Ryan, Bauer’s the guy.

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Don't Cross the Pitcher's Mound

Mikolas Calls Out Galvis For Mound Trespass, Reignites Debate Over Whether Such A Thing Even Exists

Posted on by Jason Turbow

On April 22, 2010, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees ran across the mound at the Oakland Coliseum on his way back to the dugout.

Dallas Braden, pitching for the A’s at the time, took extremely verbal exception.

It became a national story, propelling a book about baseball’s unwritten rules that had been released only a few weeks earlier waaaaay up the Amazon charts. (Shortly thereafter, The Baseball Codes crested at No. 34 overall, which in my new-author mind was nice, but hey, it’s a good book, so why not? Having since published two more titles, my stance is now more along the lines of Holy hell, did that actually happen?) 

It took a while after Rodriguez, but somebody again crossed a mound in noteworthy fashion.

On Sunday, in the fourth inning of the first game of a doubleheader, St. Louis starter Miles Mikolas got Cincinnati’s Freddy Galvis to fly out to center field. It was nondescript: a routine flyball, the second out of what would be a three-up, three-down frame … until Galvis returned to his dugout. Rather than trotting around the mound, he jogged straight over it. It was, after all, in the middle of his straightest path of return.

Mikolas was having none of it.

“I asked him politely to use the grass,” the pitcher recalled after the game in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report. (What Mikolas actually said, at least according to the lip-reading skills of @Jomboy, was “You walk around that shit. You run around the fucking mound.”)

At this point in the exchange it becomes obvious that Galvis was guilty only of ignorance. At first, he was confused about why he was being shouted at. Then he grew indignant. When Cards catcher Yadi Molina preemptively cut off Galvis’ route to the pitcher, benches and bullpens quickly emptied.

Nothing came of it, of course, the relief pitchers from both teams only making it about halfway to the infield before things calmed down. Still, there is plenty to unpack. Mainly: Why should a pitcher even care?

Mikolas offered one avenue of response, saying: “We do a tremendous job of taking care of that mound—your landing spot, the rubber, kind of keep it nice for the guys coming out of the bullpen. No one wants to come out of the bullpen with the mound all chewed.”

That’s the practical answer. The cosmic, karmic answer has to do with one’s space, physical or otherwise. As I wrote in the A-Rod/Braden aftermath:

The pitcher’s mound is unlike any other space on a baseball diamond. Pitchers use it to literally survey the field from their vantage on high. Braden’s taken some flack for calling the mound the center of the universe, but that’s exactly what he was taught. It’s the point of origin for every play on a baseball diamond, a notion that can, for those who care to run this deep, lend a sacredness to it.

Ultimately, Braden laid down the gauntlet back in 2010, sending a message to Rodriguez through the press: “If he wants to run across the pitcher’s mound, tell him to do laps in the bullpen.”

Mikolas has Braden as precedent, and Braden had plenty of precedent of his own. A sampling:

  • Bert Blyleven: “I used to really get pissed if a guy flew out, say, and he came back and stepped on my mound. I used to say something to some of the hitters. Just don’t run on my mound. That was my mound that day.”
  • Jamie Quirk: “Stay clear of the mound. It’s his area; don’t try to run across it or toward him. Just go back to your dugout and stay clear. That’s just courtesy of doing things the right way.”
  • Dave Roberts: “That’s his office, his domain. To run across it is disrespectful.”
  • Jim Price: “I’ve seen that happen, and then there was retaliation.”
  • Bob Gibson: “(Steve) Carlton and I shared one pet peeve relating to the office [the term Carlton used to refer to the mound]. We hated when hitters crossed behind it on their way back to the dugout. We took down names.” (From Stranger to the Game.)

It’s tough to fault Galvis for not knowing what he’s never been taught. Upon hearing about it from the opposition, however, it would have been a better look for him and the Reds both had he quietly gone about inquiring in his own dugout whether Mikolas might actually have a point. Manager David Bell—the son and grandson of former big leaguers—would be a great place to start.

The reality, of course, is that many big leaguers have likely done precisely the same thing, unnoticed because the pitchers whose mounds they crossed either didn’t notice themselves or didn’t bother to make an issue out of it.

Miles Mikoulas did. And it was spectacular.



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Celebrations, Let The Kids Play

Key, Late-Game Homers Let Braves, Reds Provide Contrast In Ways To Celebrate … Or Not

Posted on by Jason Turbow

So I don’t much mention bat flipping much in this space anymore because the bat flip is becoming so thoroughly integrated within the fabric of baseball that calling it out within the context of the unwritten rules is akin calling out curveballs or double plays — things that happen as a standard part of baseball practice.

Sometimes, however, a flip just cries out for attention. With that, feast your eyes on Ronald Acuna Jr.

This is fun on a few levels. It was a two-run shot that tied the game, 3-3, in the ninth. Also, he hit it off of Amir Garrett, spurring some obvious jokes, after last week’s events, about Garrett going after Acuna in response. Also, it gave us a clear distinction between the Let The Kids Play generation and the kind of non-celebration for which old-school fans continue to pine.

That’s because Acuna’s blow wasn’t actually a walk-off. The Braves couldn’t push across their necessary fourth run until it was too late, and lost in the 10th when Cincinnati’s Tucker Barnhart hit a three-run homer of his own … and did this — which is to say, not much — to celebrate:

(For a better look at Barnhart’s non-pimp job, go here.)

There are a couple of things to consider. Barnhart’s blast may have been close enough to the wall that he had initial doubts that it was gone. Plus, the game was in Atlanta, negating any desire to celebrate in front of the hometown fans. Also, like Acuna’s homer, it wasn’t a game-winner; the Reds still had to close things out in the bottom half of the frame.

Still, Acuna is only 21 years old, falling well within Elvis Andrus’ delineation that the Kids we want to Let Play be under 30. Then again, Barnhart is 28, so who the hell knows about anything anymore?

Ultimately, Acuna’s celebration left nobody worse for the wear: He was happy, the fans were happy and his teammates were happy, at least for a while. And the Reds were so unaffected by it that they came back to win the damn game. Seems like we’ve reached some semblance of balance in baseball’s new celebratory order … until another red-assed pitcher decides to get grumpy about something or other and we have to have the same discussion all over again.

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Retaliation

MLB Makes It Official With Suspensions: Head-Hunting Is Worse Than Charging The Opposition

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Supensions have been handed down for Tuesday’s Reds-Pirates brawl, and there are some doozies:

  • Keone Kela: 10 games
  • Amir Garrett: Eight games
  • Jose Osuna: Five games
  • Jared Hughes: Three games
  • Kyle Crick: Three games
  • Yasiel Puig: Three games
  • David Bell: Six games
  • Clint Hurdle: Two games

There’s a lot to read into this. Kela’s obvious head-hunting—not to mention his admission of it after the fact—is seen in the league office as more offensive than Amir Garrett literally rushing the Pirates’ dugout to throw punches. Ten games is no small matter, but neither is a pitcher reckless enough to target an opponent’s head. (The fact that Kela had just emerged from a team-issued suspension after an altercation with a Pirates employee, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, does not speak well to his general temperament.)

Ultimately, displays like Garrett’s are exceedingly rare. Displays like Kela’s, unfortunately, are not. Good on the league office for sending this particular message.

Hughes’ suspension seems like an attempt to keep things even-handed, even though his came in below the waist.

Bell’s suspension—earned for returning to the field following an ejection with malevolence aforethought—was expected. Hurdle’s—for his team’s “multiple intentional pitches thrown at [Derek] Dietrich this season”—was not. Looks like Joe Torre has officially had his fill of Pittsburgh’s tendencies when it comes to targeting opponents.

The rest of the suspensions—plus fines for Trevor Williams, Joey Votto and Phillip Ervin—are an effort by the Commissioner’s office not just to take a stance against fighting, but against fighting between these particular teams.

“The incidents between these two Clubs remain a source of concern, and it’s reflected by the level of discipline we are handing down today,” said Torre in a statement.

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Retaliation

Retaliation Gone Wrong: Reds, Pirates Boil Over After Beanball Attempt

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Keone Kela told the truth. Among the ranks of big league pitchers, this is virtually unheard of when discussing message pitches. It’s the closest the guy got to respectable yesterday.

“The reason I went up and in was strictly, one, to show my intent with my pitch, and to pretty much let Dietrich know that I didn’t necessarily agree with the way things went down,” Kela said following a brawl-marred game between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.

“Dietrich,” of course, is Derek Dietrich, Reds outfielder and season-long Pirates antagonist. The up-and-in in question, in the seventh inning of yesterday’s Pirates-Reds game, was a 97-mph fastball that flew past Dietrich’s head and sparked the wildest brawl in the big leagues this season. It was only the latest chapter in what’s become baseball’s most prominent blood feud.

The bad vibes between the teams dates back at least to 2012, but yesterday’s episode tracks to an April 7 game in Pittsburgh, when benches cleared after Chris Archer sailed a pitch behind Dietrich’s backside, a clear response to the pimp-job the hitter did after homering earlier in the  game.

In 12 games this year, reported Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer, the two teams have racked up 15 ejections and nine hit batsmen while facing each other, largely due to the Reds’ belief that Pittsburgh  pitchers consistently and intentionally target their hitters.

Kela has a funny way of showing intent. When Archer wanted to send a message back in April, he did it with a pitch below the belt. Yesterday, Kela went for the head. At that point, Cincinnati’s anger, already established, could not be contained. Joey Votto yelled into the Pirates dugout from his position at first base. Manager David Bell came out to vigorously argue balls and strikes with plate ump Larry Vanover, and was ejected. In the ninth, reliever Jared Hughes—who, as a former member of the Pirates, knows whereof he pitches—officially responded to Kela’s would-be beanball by hitting Starling Marte in the posterior with a fastball.

Reds reliever Amir Garrett topped them all, getting into a shouting match with Josh Bell in the ninth inning, then all but telling coach Jeff Pickler, as they were standing on the mound, that he was going to go and fight the Pirates. Then he handed over the baseball and did that very thing.

What mandates examination here is not strictly Kela’s terrible decision about how best to execute his message, although that certainly plays a part. (Somehow, he wasn’t tossed for the pitch, and ended up striking Dietrich out.) It’s that Pittsburgh has made such behavior integral to their game plan. Earlier today, Bill Baer of NBC Sports compiled a list of Pirates brawls over the last few years. It’s not short.

The Pirates have explained it away as an organizational approach, wanting their pitchers dominate the inside corner. That, of course, leads to unintentional HBPs, which make the intentional ones—of which there have been plenty—seem all the worse. (Pittsburgh is tied for second in the National League in batters hit, one behind Miami. Cincinnati is well below league average, at 36.) Then there are those that come in above the shoulders.

“It’s a shame that [the Pirates’ head-hunting] is allowed, and they’re able to get away with it,” Reds manager David Bell—who went after Pirates skipper Clint Hurdle during yesterday’s fight, though he was unable to effectively reach him—told the Athletic. “They celebrate it. They support it. They clearly allow it. I don’t know if they teach, but they allow it. It’s dangerous. … That has been going on all year. It’s bigger than baseball at this point. People you care about, their health is put jeopardy and nothing is done about it. We suffer for it.”

They will continue to suffer for it. So many underhanded shenanigans went down during the course of the battle, highlighted by Garrett’s dugout charge, that both teams would be justified in feeling that they had things for which to retaliate.

Nothing went down during the follow-up meeting between the teams on Wednesday (apart from pregame handshake snubs by each manager), but the Pirates and Reds meet again twice more, once in August and once to close the season in September. Smart money is on more fireworks.

As for Kela, telling the truth will get him what it gets every truth-telling head-hunter: a suspension. It’ll be one of the few moments to come from yesterday’s events that makes any sense.

Update 8/1: Suspensions are here, and they are hefty.

2
Bat Flipping, Retaliation, Showboating

Wednesday’s Lesson In MLB: Try Not To Accidentally Hit Guys With Whom Your Team Is Already Beefing

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Perception is everything, and precedent feeds perception. On Wednesday, baseball saw two games with hotly contested hit batters, and while there is a strong possibility that neither was intentional, recent history has led those at the wrong end of the pitches to leap to some obvious conclusions.

Let’s start in Chicago, where the White Sox’ series with Kansas City was already steeped in contention, given that the last time these teams met resulted in a rhubarb over a Tim Anderson bat toss. The Royals have already paid him back for that, so when they did it again on Wednesday—pitcher Glenn Sparkman bouncing a ball off of Anderson’s head—the situation appeared ready to explode.

Except for this: It was the second inning of a 2-1 game, with nobody out and a runner on first. Also, it was a changeup—not the type of heat-seeker ordinarily utilized for nefarious purposes. For what it’s worth, the pitch merely grazed the brim of Anderson’s helmet—a terrible location to be sure, but more indicative of a ball that’s riding up and in than a missile aimed at an earflap.

Anderson seemed to realize all of this. Hell, the pitch didn’t even knock him down. While visibly frustrated, he more or less just stood in the batter’s box, helmetless, staring down Sparkman. Anderson’s lack of response was no doubt abetted by umpire Mark Carlson, who emerged from behind the plate and quickly tossed the befuddled pitcher from the game. (“It was a changeup,” Sparkman can be seen explaining on replays. Even Anderson said later that he felt the pitch was accidental.)

Had the Royals not already targeted Anderson this season, of course, there’s almost no chance that Sparkman would have been tossed. As it is, optics are important and Carlson did not want this game to get away from him. Sometimes it’s hard to be an umpire.

***

In Cincinnati, meanwhile, the game was getting away from the Reds, as Pittsburgh built up a 7-0 lead by the eighth inning. That’s when Pirates reliever Clay Holmes drilled Eugenio Suarez in the hand with a 94-mph fastball. There were some moments of immediate heat—Suarez approached the mound for before being led away by catcher Elias Diaz—but things cooled quickly. X-rays proved negative and Suarez is day-to-day.

“I don’t know if they are going to hit me on purpose,” Suarez said after the game in a MLB.com report. “That’s why I walked up to him and asked him if he hit me on purpose. He said, ‘No. Definitely not.’ I just said I wanted to make sure because I don’t like that pitch up and in, right on my face.”

This is believable. Holmes has walked 15 batters in 15⅔ minor league innings this season, and has issued seven free passes in 13 innings since being called up. Outstanding control does not appear to be his thing.

That didn’t prevent Reds manager David Bell from having a say about what had just gone down. So vehement was he when he came out to argue about the pitch that umpire Jeff Nelson ejected him.

Again, this is where optics matter.

In April, Pirates starter Chris Archer threw a pitch behind Derek Dietrich in response to the slugger taking an unusual amount of time to watch a home run that ended up in the Allegheny River outside PNC Park.

In April 2018, Pittsburgh’s Jameson Taillon broke the selfsame Suarez’s thumb with a pitch, costing the slugger three weeks. Later in the season, Taillon hit Suarez again, this time in the elbow. Never mind that none of the pitches appeared to be intentional, or that as a hitter Suarez could do a better job of turning his back toward inside pitches rather than leaning away from them with his hands exposed—a habit that got Jeff Bagwell’s hand broken in three consecutive seasons. Hitting him again looks bad, so it must be bad.

Bell was fed up by the lot of it. He’d previously instructed his pitchers not to retaliate for such things. That stance may have changed.

“We know they’ll do it,” the manager told reporters after the game in a Cincinnati.com report, explaining his argument with the umpires. “I was doing what I could to protect our players. Clearly, we’re not going to get protected. We’ve got to do whatever we can. We’ve got to take matters into our own hands. It’s unfortunate that our players aren’t going to get protected. That’s been made clear, and we know that team will intentionally throw at people. What are you supposed to think?”

He continued.

“When someone is messing with your livelihood, your career, who knows? You’ve got to protect yourself. Clearly, we’re not going to get protected by the umpires or the league. That’s been made clear. Our players need to do whatever they need to do protect themselves. I’ll back them whatever that is. For some reason, we think it’s OK to throw at people. For whatever reason, that was OK many years ago, and we’re still living some rules that I don’t know about—that it’s OK to intentionally throw at our players. The umpires think it’s OK. The league thinks it’s somewhat OK. Somebody’s going to get hurt. We need to take as many measures as possible. Ours need to do whatever they need to do to stick up for themselves, protect themselves. They protect themselves, their career.”

Bell has already proved to be angry about this topic to the point of incoherence. Still, the closest the Reds came to a response yesterday was when reliever Raisel Iglesias threw an up-and-in, 97-mph fastball to Bryan Reynolds with an 0-2 count, before eventually striking Reynolds out.

What we’re left with is increasingly high tension. Bell has thrown down one gauntlet. Pirates broadcaster John Wehner threw down another on Pittsburgh radio, when he came down on Dietrich, of all people, for his homer-watching ways: “I can’t stand him. … I don’t understand why you have to do that. It’s different if you’re a Hall of Fame player, you’re a 60-homer guy, you’re an established guy. Nobody ever heard of him before this year.”

Wehner also referenced Dietrich’s grandfather, Steve Demeter, a longtime minor league coach in the Pirates system, who he said “is rolling in his grave every time this guy hits a home run. He’s embarrassed of his grandson.”

Let’s ignore for a moment the very old-school notion of players earning whatever leeway they’re afforded by the sport’s unwritten rules; Wehner seems completely oblivious of the sea change that’s occurred around baseball as pertains to celebrations.

However much they angered the Pirates and Royals, displays like Dietrich’s and Anderson’s are entering the mainstream, to the point of approval from MLB’s own marketing department. Pitchers have the right to try and put a damper on them, but that tactic does not appear to be working very well as a method of dissuasion.

At least Royals-White Sox and Reds-Pirates matchups, despite the meat-headedness therein, are far more interesting now than they were at the beginning of the season.

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