This past Wednesday, the Arizona Diamondbacks faced a scary situation when Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez accidentally hit David Peralta in the head with a pitch.
Fernandez was clearly concerned over what had happened, as he immediately ran up to home plate to check on Peralta.
Peralta eventually got to his feet and left the game for obvious reasons.
Afterwards, one would have expected the Arizona Diamondbacks to think, “Jeez, you know Fernandez is awfully concerned. He clearly didn’t mean to do that. We’re glad Peralta is ok. Let’s move on and try to win this ball game.”
Of course, that didn’t happen.
In the 7th inning, Christian Yelich was a victim of a retaliation pitch by Dominic Leone.
It’s an unwritten rule that retaliation is necessary in certain situations, and this situation surely wasn’t one of those situations.
Nothing was accomplished other than Leone getting himself thrown out.
A similar situation almost occurred just the night before in another game, but this time over a team being offended by a celebration.
In the previous night before, the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres almost brawled over Hector Sanchez lightly celebrating by flipping his bat after a grand slam.
Unhappy with the celebration, pitcher Dale Thayer decided to throw his gum in the direction of Sanchez as he rounded the bases after he hit his grand slam.
While that should have been enough child’s play, the Padres decided to take it to another level. When Sanchez came up to bat later in the game, Shawn Kelley who was then pitching, decided to throw way inside in what was a pretty obvious attempt to drill Sanchez.
Kelley never did accomplish hitting Sanchez. After grounding out to first, Sanchez had some choice words with Kelley on the way to the dugout, and the umpires had to break them up causing the benches to clear.
By the way, if you lost me three paragraphs ago, this was all started over chewing gum and a celebration over a grand slam.
It’s time for MLB to begin cracking down on pitchers throwing intentionally at hitters, for any reason. Kelley should have been tossed as soon as it became clear that he was trying to hit Sanchez.
Who has to get hurt first before MLB starts taking action?
Which players need to get injured or suspended over defending their teammates in a benches clearing brawl over something as stupid and childish as celebrating a grand slam?
Baseball is the only modern sport in America, maybe the world, where pitchers can intentionally throw an object at a player as hard as they can with the intention to inflict pain, and not get more than an ejection in most cases.
Next, the players should knock it off with this unwritten rule about celebrating business, if not all unwritten rules together.
In other baseball playing countries like Korea and Japan, bat flipping is in art. Celebrating a grand slam should be expected.
For a team a like the San Diego Padres, that had so many high expectations coming into the year, getting mad over a team that is far better than you for lightly celebrating, is a bad look and just adds to the ever growing disappointment over their season.
Stay classy San Diego.
If you’re the Arizona Diamondbacks, go take a jump into your pool in right-centerfield and cool off.
