By Yours Truly
https://throneberryfields.blogspot.com/2018/08/theres-no-good-reason-to-let-urena-off.html
Bellowing Braves manager Brian Snitker and his
charges had every right to be furious when Jose
Urena (62) drilled Ronald Acuna, Jr. for no
legitimate reason beyond his team's ego being
bruised by the Braves' star rookie.In the immediacy of Jose Urena drilling Ronald Acuna, Jr. on a first inning-opening pitch, and with malice aforethought, an awful lot of people around baseball had an awful lot to say about it. An awful lot of it was sound if emotionally excessive; an awful lot of it was patent nonsense.
But maybe the first one to whom you ought to listen is Michael Young, who is one of the most respected players who ever wore a Rangers uniform.
"You can't make a good hitter uncomfortable. He's been there, done that," said Young, who retired four years ago. "He's laughing in his head because your heaters inside are simply teeing him up with a 2-0 count. Then he's going to torch you. You wanna get him out? Stop listening to that pitching coach giving you that outdated, awful Pitching 101. It's actually Quick Shower 101. Go in, out, up, down, change speeds, avoid patterns, and stop tipping. Clean it up."
It wasn't
exactly Quick Shower 101 for Urena Wednesday night. Plate umpire Chad Fairchild hustled out from behind the plate in a hurry after Acuna went bending, hopping, and skipping around the third base side grass in obvious agony, but Fairchild didn't eject Urena until the Braves oozed onto the mound area to confront Urena and manager Brian Snitker got into the umpires' faces over why Urena hadn't gotten Quick Shower 101.
Urena did get tossed in due course. So, unfortunately, did Snitker, who was guilty of no crime other than standing up for his wounded warrior and demanding rightfully that the umps do something immediately about a completely uncalled-for hit batsman.
Already playing a hot bat when the Marlins arrived for their set with the Braves in SunTrust Park, Acuna made the Fish his personal batting practise, almost, and they made it only too easy for him to do it.
He opened both ends of a Monday night doubleheader with home runs; he opened Tuesday night's game with a home run; he hit another bomb Tuesday night while he was at it. If the Marlins thought Acuna was getting too comfortable at the plate, they had better times to send that message. They couldn't accuse him of showboating because showboating isn't his style just yet, if at all. And they couldn't accuse him plausibly of crowding the plate, not without sounding like whiners.
Acuna's normal batter's box positioning is his back foot about five or six inches away from the inner chalk, and his front foot slightly behind his back foot and almost halfway between the inner and outer chalk. This
isn't exactly a hitter inching as close to the inner chalk as he thinks he can get away with.
Let's review all four bombs Acuna hit against Marlins pitching before he ran into Urena Wednesday night, from the
same positioning in the batter's box as I just described:
* Monday, first game of the doubleheader. On 3-1 against righthander Pablo Lopez, he got a fastball tailing back from the inside over the middle of the plate, and sent it over the right center field fence.
* Monday, second game of the doubleheader. Facing another righthander, Merandy Gonzalez. On the first pitch of the bottom of the first, he got a fastball right down the pipe and a little toward the floor of the strike zone. It sailed into the left center field seats.
* Tuesday night, leading off. The pitcher: righthander Trevor Richards. Also on the first pitch. Fastball down and in. Flying parabolically into the left field seats.
* Tuesday night, bottom of the seventh. With two on and two out, Miami lefthander Adam Conley's fastball crossed back toward the middle of the plate from the outside. Without Acuna having to even think about leaning across the plate, he sent it into the right field pavilion in front of the Chop House restaurant.
At no
time hitting any
of those four home runs did Acuna lean across the plate, dive across the plate, or move his feet closer to the inner batter's box chalk. He got four pitches fat enough to handle without even thinking of changing his stance or box positioning and drove them squarely. Anyone who says Acuna was asking for a drill by the time he checked in at the plate in the bottom of the first Wednesday ought to ask first a) why the Marlins continued feeding him pitches Stevie Wonder could hit over the fence, and b) whether they should be taken truly seriously as baseball observers.
This wasn't a hitter allowed to get so comfortable at the plate that he could have set up a chaise lounge, a table, and a cocktail while dialing nine. This was a team getting its brains beaten out when their pitchers forgot how to avoid Acuna's wheelhouse and kept feeding him such a sumptuous diet he'd have been less than gracious if he didn't dine accordingly.
It was a reckless pitcher---who's leading the National League in hit batsmen while he's at it---deciding on his own that Acuna needed to be taught a lesson about being on too hot a hot streak on the dollars of pitchers who couldn't always find ways to get him out. "Baseball's 'code' barely makes sense on its best day," fumed CBS sportscaster Jim Rome. "The unwritten rules of the game are unwritten for a reason. Because, once you write them all down, you realise how stupid they really all are."
Once upon a time, Seattle Pilots manager Joe Schultz tried to brace up his pitchers' confidence when facing behemoth slugger Frank Howard: "
Somebody's getting him out. The bastard's only hitting .296." News flash. Acuna is only hitting .288 on the year. He only went 2-for-3 in the first game Monday, 3-for-5 in the second game, and 3-for-5 Tuesday night.
Somebody's getting him out.
Young knows a lot about reckless pitchers. For several years he had one for a teammate---Vicente Padilla, a righthander who thought nothing of throwing at hitters over the slightest slights, hardly even caring that his teammates might and often did face retaliation for his dusters. Young and Mark Teixiera were only the most frequent recipients of revenge pitches for Padilla plunks.
As a matter of fact, one of the main reasons the Rangers dumped him in August 2009, despite his 8-6 won-lost record, was that he was a "disruptive clubhouse influence." Specifically, the Rangers became fed up with Padilla throwing at hitters and then sometimes laughing when a teammate got dusted in retaliation. More specifically, Padilla was caught red-mouthed on camera laughing after Young went down for one of Padilla's drillers.
One of the Rangers considered a clubhouse leader then, as Young always was, was Marlon Byrd. He didn't exactly have Padilla's back when the Rangers in essence fired the righthander. "We are fighting for a playoff spot," the outfielder said. "The last thing we need in the clubhouse is a distraction like that. There are 25 guys in this clubhouse who are behind management on this. They showed that they are serious. They did their job."
Padilla also developed a particular penchant for throwing at Teixiera after Teixiera left the Rangers. He once suggested, infamously, that Teixiera might feel more comfortable playing a woman's sport, after Teixiera continued objecting to his headhunting. "I think he's maybe a little afraid of me," Padilla crowed. Anyone discovering Teixiera has a lifetime 4-for-12 jacket against Padilla with three home runs and eight runs batted in would suggest it was the other way around.
Dig deeper. The real beef between them was Teixiera objecting aloud when he, too, became a frequent payback target over Padilla's headhunting during their Rangers days. (When Padilla concurrently accused Teixiera of having "problems" with Latino players, Teixiera and just about everyone who knew him laughed it off.)
The good news is that Acuna's elbow delivered a negative CT scan, after all, even if the Braves' rookie bombardier is listed day-to-day for now. The bad news is that Urena has yet to be disciplined by either his Marlins or baseball government. And the worse news may yet prove one of baseball government's typically meaningless punishments.
The Braves retaliated to Acuna's drilling the right way. After falling behind 2-0, they filleted the Fish, 5-2, with three in the fourth (including Darby Swanson's two-run bomb) and two in the sixth (an RBI single and a run-scoring line out) to finish the four-game sweep.
Urena said after Wednesday's game that he doesn't think it's right he'll get a five game suspension merely for trying to pitch inside. If that's all he was doing, he'd have heeded Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto's actual mitt target, low and just off the inside black of the plate, without even a millimeter's worth of suggestion that the pitch sail into Acuna's body.
Urena is right in one sense. If all he gets is a five-game suspension, it wouldn't be right. It should be enough games to cover his next ten starting assignments. He threw at a kid whose only crime was feeding hungrily on too-fat pitches for which Eddie Gaedel wouldn't have had to dive or crowd the plate, and he was defending nothing but team egos being sent over the fences.
And if baseball government adduces the same evidence I adduced above but still gives Urena a measly five games' pass, it should be condemned for moral idiocy.
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