MLB: Man I hate to see this, 80-90 MPH fastball thrown at a guy's face

festeringZit · Apr 23, 2017

I'm a huge Red Sox fan, and I realize this was retaliation for a nasty slide Friday night, but
I thought protocol was, if you're going to throw at someone, you throw at their body, not
right at their face.

You could kill someone, or at a minimum end their career with a pitch like that.

[video]

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...hrowing-pitch-baltimore-orioles-manny-machado

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</figure>6:27 PM CT

ESPN.com news services

Red Sox pitcher Matt Barnes was ejected in the eighth inning of Boston's 6-2 victory Sunday at Camden Yards when his pitch sailed past the head of Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado.
Machado had spiked Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia on Friday night sliding into second base. Machado apologized with a text message on Friday night, but that evidently wasn't the end of it.
"That's on them,'' Machado said after Sunday's game. "Whatever happened today, I'm going to keep (being) me.''
When Machado batted in the sixth inning, Eduardo Rodriguez threw three pitches down and in near the knees. Machado came up again in the eighth, and Barnes' pitch whizzed behind Machado and hit his bat. The ball hit Machado and rolled foul, and plate umpire Andy Fletcher tossed Barnes.
"I would never intentionally throw at someone's head. That's kind of a line you don't cross,'' Barnes said.
Boston manager John Farrell immediately bolted from the dugout to complain. Farrell on Saturday called the league office to discuss about what he called "an illegal slide'' by Machado.
"He was trying to take a four-seamer in and above his hands and the pitch got away from him,'' Farrell said.
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<source data-srcset="http://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2017%2F0423%2Fr202486_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&w=570, http://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/photo/2017/0423/r202486_1296x729_16-9.jpg&w=1140&cquality=40 2x" media="(min-width: 376px)" srcset="http://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2017%2F0423%2Fr202486_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&w=570, http://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/photo/2017/0423/r202486_1296x729_16-9.jpg&w=1140&cquality=40 2x" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><source data-srcset="http://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2017%2F0423%2Fr202486_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&w=375, http://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/photo/2017/0423/r202486_1296x729_16-9.jpg&w=750&cquality=40 2x" media="(max-width: 375px)" srcset="http://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2017%2F0423%2Fr202486_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&w=375, http://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/photo/2017/0423/r202486_1296x729_16-9.jpg&w=750&cquality=40 2x" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><img class="lazyloaded imageLoaded" data-image-container=".inline-photo" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; vertical-align: top; max-width: 100%; display: block; width: 565px;"></picture><figcaption class="photoCaption" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(72, 73, 74); font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 10px; position: relative;">Matt Barnes' high, very inside pitch behind the head of Manny Machado Sunday came two days after the Orioles star took out Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia with a spikes-high slide. <cite style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(165, 166, 167); font-style: normal; display: inline-block;">AP Photo/Gail Burton</cite></figcaption></figure></aside>But Orioles first baseman Chris Davis thought the fastball was intentionally directed at Machado's head.
"I think it was completely obvious,'' Davis said. "I haven't seen a guy miss that bad in a while -- behind a guy's head.''
Orioles manager Buck Showalter appeared reluctant to criticize the Red Sox, but said, "The courage it takes not to retaliate a lot of times in life is a lot more challenging than doing what ended up happening today.''
During Farrell's argument with Fletcher, Pedroia was standing on the top step in the dugout and whistled to catch Machado's attention. He mouthed the words, "It's not me,'' evidently trying to show he was not seeking revenge. Machado acknowledged Pedroia and later pointed to his head.
"I had nothing to do with that. That's not how you do that, man,'' Pedroia said afterward. "I'm sorry to him and his team. If you're going to protect guys, you do it the right away.''
He added: "It's definitely a mishandled situation. There was zero intention of him trying to hurt me (Friday night). He just made a bad slide. He did hurt me. It's baseball, man."
Machado grabbed a bat and waited for Red Sox reliever Joe Kelly to get warmed up before stepping back into the box with an 0-1 count.
On the first pitch from Kelly, Machado drove a triple to center field that scored Adam Jones and cut Boston's lead to 6-1.
Machado ended up making the last out of the game, hitting a popup on a pitch from Craig Kimbrel, who got his seventh save.
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</article>Pedroia was out of the lineup for a second consecutive game Sunday after being taken out by the hard, spikes-high slide by Machado in the eighth inning Friday night. Pedroia continued to experience swelling in his left ankle and surgically repaired left knee and will undergo an MRI exam Monday after the Red Sox return home.
"I love Manny Machado," Pedroia said Sunday. "I love playing against him. I love watching him. If I slid into third base and got Manny's knee, I know I'm going to get drilled. It's baseball. I get drilled, I go to first base. That's it."
The test will be administered "just to rule anything out," Farrell told reporters before Sunday's series finale.

mountain · Apr 23, 2017

I'm surprised also, the slide was late but I've seen worse. Barnes may have been on his own but even so, it should have been a foot lower. Pedroia looks like he is distancing himself from the plunk. They meet again at Fenway next week, it's going to be a long season

hehateme82 · Apr 24, 2017

Good to see Pedroia calling out the attempted head shot. He's right, first at bat after the poor slide, drill many in the ass and move on.

festeringZit · Apr 24, 2017

[ What is cool, is Pedroia calling out his own team-mate right when it happened, on national TV ]

[h=1]There’s No Excuse for Throwing at a Player’s Head[/h][h=2]Just ask Boston’s Dustin Pedroia, who in stunning fashion disavowed teammate Matt Barnes’s decision to beam a retaliatory pitch at Baltimore third baseman Manny Machado’s head on Sunday[/h]
<figure name="c3e4" id="c3e4" class="graf graf--figure graf--layoutOutsetCenter graf-after--h4" data-scroll="native"></figure>
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<figcaption class="imageCaption">(AP Photos)</figcaption></figure>
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</figure>It’s not every day a ballplayer makes news for not fighting, but Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia has always been a little unorthodox.
Pedroia left Friday night’s game against Baltimore when Orioles third baseman Manny Machado slid through the second base bag while trying to break up a double play and spiked Pedroia in the leg. This kind of play has been under scrutiny for years, particularly after Chase Utley Nigel-de-Jong’d the shit out of Rubén Tejada’s leg in the 2015 NLDS.
Machado’s slide on Friday wasn’t a great slide, but it didn’t look like Machado was trying to hurt Pedroia so much as his front foot bounced up off the base, which happens on about every third slide into second base and rarely results in anything worse than getting called out on replay. Machado, being as large as he is and traveling as fast as he was, carries a lot of kinetic energy, and he’s wearing spikes on his foot — these things are going to happen. In fact, you can see that immediately after he made contact, Machado reached out after Pedroia, then caught him on his way down. Careless and dangerous? Probably. Malicious? Absolutely not.
<figure name="d680" id="d680" class="graf graf--figure graf--iframe graf-after--p"></figure><figure name="d680" id="d680" class="graf graf--figure graf--iframe graf-after--p"></figure>After Friday’s game, Pedroia no-sold the incident while Boston manager John Farrell carried on a two-day-long lobbying campaign with MLB, saying Machado violated the Utley Rule. (To what end I’m not exactly sure — the penalty for a dirty slide into second is being called out for interference.) Orioles manager Buck Showalter, in a moment of clarity that applies to the overwhelming majority of sports arguments, said, “I look at things through Oriole glasses, orange and black, they look at it through [Red Sox glasses]. I understand their feelings, but I do understand ours.”
Pedroia hasn’t played since, and is day-to-day pending an MRI when the team returns to Boston.
But because baseball culture is so obsessed with protocol, and populated by men who positively quiver with repressed machismo, it couldn’t end there.
On Sunday, having had two days to mull it over, Boston reliever Matt Barnes tried to put one in Machado’s ear hole.
<figure name="2dee" id="2dee" class="graf graf--figure graf--iframe graf-after--p"></figure><figure name="2dee" id="2dee" class="graf graf--figure graf--iframe graf-after--p"></figure><figure name="de3e" id="de3e" class="graf graf--figure graf--iframe graf-after--figure"></figure><figure name="de3e" id="de3e" class="graf graf--figure graf--iframe graf-after--figure"></figure>That’s unwise, and there’s more to say about Barnes in a minute, but the most remarkable thing about this whole episode was Pedroia’s response from the dugout.
<figure name="efc1" id="efc1" class="graf graf--figure graf--iframe graf-after--p"></figure><figure name="efc1" id="efc1" class="graf graf--figure graf--iframe graf-after--p"></figure>So here’s Dustin Pedroia, the actual aggrieved party and the veteran face of the Red Sox, crossing the battle lines on television to publicly disavow his teammate’s attempt to “defend” him.
“That’s not me, that’s them.”
Pedroia expounded on his thoughts after the game.
<figure name="ed4d" id="ed4d" class="graf graf--figure graf--iframe graf-after--p"></figure><figure name="ed4d" id="ed4d" class="graf graf--figure graf--iframe graf-after--p"></figure>I’ve never seen anything like that in baseball before. Pedroia, in case this matters at all, is 100 percent right: Some might say it’s childish to bean a player after an accident, but baseball’s norms being what they are, it’s an acceptable response. But if you’re going to do it, you do it as soon as possible instead of waiting around for two days like a gag from How I Met Your Mother, and you don’t ever go for the head. It’s not surprising that Pedroia would take Barnes, a middle reliever in his fourth season, to task for violating those norms, but normally, he’d do it privately and directly, and none of us would ever have known about it.
Maybe Barnes throwing at Machado’s head was so beyond the pale that Pedroia couldn’t wait. Maybe — as he said repeatedly after the game — he just really likes Machado, which is certainly understandable, and doesn’t want to see him hurt. Either way, it’s extremely unusual to see a player break ranks this publicly, for any reason.
As for Barnes, he deserves to go sit in the corner for a while to think about what he’s done. Ordinarily, you’ll find that more politically progressive, analytically inclined baseball writers are stridently anti-beanball, but I’m not. I think throwing at a guy for flipping his bat or oversliding the bag is a bit of a crybaby act — it’s not “defending your teammate” because, like fighting in hockey, it doesn’t actually deter future acts of violence. But like fighting in hockey, it’s fun, and baseball is an entertainment venture that too infrequently offers moments where passion boils over. So sure, drill a guy in the thigh if the spirit moves you. The game’s more fun when there’s a little bad blood.
But a pitcher can kill someone by throwing at a guy’s head, even if he gets the helmet. Ask David Wright what a concussion can do to a player’s career. Ask Giancarlo Stanton or Jason Heyward about what happens when the ball misses the helmet and hits the batter in the face. Or ask Tony Conigliaro. The occasional bruised rib is one thing — headhunting can end a player’s career or change his life.
MLB should throw the book at Barnes — a 10-game suspension wouldn’t be out of line. Tack on a couple of games for his chickenshit lie about whether he meant to hit Machado. Suspend Farrell for condoning this caveman mentality in his clubhouse, particularly after his own postgame denial was somehow even less credible than that of Barnes, who at least had the gumption to lie directly instead of equivocating. If a retaliatory beanball is a matter of honor, there’s nothing less honorable than throwing at a player’s head.
It’s such a detestable act that it got Pedroia to condemn his teammate, where everyone could see him, while the game was still going on.

VIEJODINOSAUR · Apr 24, 2017

You plunk the guy in the ribs....you don't throw at his head....

Major suspension for Barnes should be given....even though the pitch was a strike

joebatters · Apr 24, 2017

I know it's besides the point, but they actually call that a foul ball? It clearly hit him in the head first didn't it??!!
Wtf

festeringZit · Apr 24, 2017

joebatters said:
I know it's besides the point, but they actually call that a foul ball? It clearly hit him in the head first didn't it??!!
Wtf

From what I could glean from multiple reports, it looks like it hit him in the head, but it didn't - it hit the bat.

joebatters · Apr 24, 2017

festeringZit said:
From what I could glean from multiple reports, it looks like it hit him in the head, but it didn't - it hit the bat.

Damnnn!!! Thanks for the response. That's crazy!!
By looking at that video, I would've wagered everything I owned that the ball hit him...crazy.

Mobdeeper7239 · Apr 24, 2017

A friend of mine on Saturday told me after the Manny slide that got Pedroia hurt, to wait until Sunday. He told me....

"They will throw at mannys head tomorrow."

That's baseball. Unwritten rules

festeringZit · Apr 24, 2017

Mobdeeper7239 said:
A friend of mine on Saturday told me after the Manny slide that got Pedroia hurt, to wait until Sunday. He told me....

"They will throw at mannys head tomorrow."

That's baseball. Unwritten rules

I thought the unwritten rule is that you throw at the guy's body, not the head, and that's why Pedroia make a stink?

Mobdeeper7239 · Apr 24, 2017

festeringZit said:
I thought the unwritten rule is that you throw at the guy's body, not the head, and that's why Pedroia make a stink?

Pedroia was in the locker room. His manager and 3rd base coach were bitching soooooo much on Saturday after that slide by Manny on Pedroia. It wasn't even that bad. They are a bunch of hoes. MAD because they suck now and the Orioles are the truth.

The fact of the matter is they miss David Ortiz so much and nobody is talking about that. What are they in home runs right now? Garbage. That's what.

Mobdeeper7239 · Apr 24, 2017

You can read Pedrioa's lips...."that's not me, that's them." Saying that to Manny. The manager sent that down 10000%. Pedroia wasn't even that pissed. Those coaches were irate on Saturday after the slide. They literally returned from commercial and were still complaining.

Bourn · Apr 24, 2017

festeringZit said:
From what I could glean from multiple reports, it looks like it hit him in the head, but it didn't - it hit the bat.

Looks like it hits his helmet first then ricoches off helmet to bat.

festeringZit · Apr 24, 2017

Mobdeeper7239 said:
Pedroia was in the locker room. His manager and 3rd base coach were bitching soooooo much on Saturday after that slide by Manny on Pedroia. It wasn't even that bad. They are a bunch of hoes. MAD because they suck now and the Orioles are the truth.

The fact of the matter is they miss David Ortiz so much and nobody is talking about that. What are they in home runs right now? Garbage. That's what.

"They are a bunch of hoes. MAD because they suck now and the Orioles are the truth."

Mad because they suck?

Yeah right... we'll see you at the end of the season.

mountain · Apr 24, 2017

Hit his bat and was a foul ball. Could have been worse for the O's, could have hit his bat and landed in fair territory and he could have been thrown out.

Insult to injury but it has happened before

hehateme82 · Apr 24, 2017

festeringZit said:
"They are a bunch of hoes. MAD because they suck now and the Orioles are the truth."

Mad because they suck?

Yeah right... we'll see you at the end of the season.

Sox don't suck and will be in the mix for sure, but Jesus the fans that travel to the yard are fucking unbearable. I can't go when they are in town

SgtLanquel · Apr 24, 2017

hehateme82 said:
Sox don't suck and will be in the mix for sure, but Jesus the fans that travel to the yard are fucking unbearable. I can't go when they are in town

SheBar and I got up and moved two sections over a couple years back Rays hosting Chisox......But two rows behind us RedSoxFan and YankeeFan started trading smak and it went on for an hour plus....Completely oblivious to their being at a Rays game

SgtLanquel · Apr 24, 2017

but yeah, Sox unlikely to be there this October.....they seem unable to string together back to back playoff appearances......if we can even include last year's three and out

festeringZit · Apr 24, 2017

Sgt Lanquel said:
but yeah, Sox unlikely to be there this October.....they seem unable to string together back to back playoff appearances......if we can even include last year's three and out

Good logic there Sgt. haha

SgtLanquel · Apr 24, 2017

just hoping we can threaten 88 wins here

MLB: Man I hate to see this, 80-90 MPH fastball thrown at a guy's face

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