Friday night in Boston, former Cy Young winner David Price hit two Red Sox batters emptying the dugouts once and throwing the game into a tailspin that would spawn the ejection of 3 Red Sox coaches and a replaceable relief pitcher.
All of this happened less than a week after a scrum between these same two teams erupted at 3rd base in Tampa meaning that going into the game, it would be smart for the umpires to officiate this game with less tolerance for such mischief. They did the very opposite. When David Price plunked Boston's star DH, David Ortiz in the 1st inning he very well should have been tossed from the game but instead he was simply given a warning. Possibly as a result of that, Price tested the system again just 2 innings later when he threw a high fastball in the direction of Mike Carp's neck. Carp was able to get his arm up to block the pitch before it caused major damage to him but nevertheless, there was great anger on the part of the Red Sox when it was seen that Price was still not ejected. Needless to say, with the umpires refusing to keep this a baseball game rather than a dodge-ball game, the Red Sox took the job of enacting justice into their own hands. As the scrum around David Price and Mike Carp grew, furious Sox like David Ortiz and Shane Victorino mashed their way through the pile and came dangerously close to initiating a full out, fists flying brawl.
Though that possible incident which would have surely been a crisis for the umpires was evidently averted, Brandon Workman came out in the 6th inning and promptly attempted a pitch at Evan Longoria's head. After all that happened with stars and such, it was Workman, a middle reliever with just 16+ innings pitched this season, who served as the only player ejected from Friday's game.
But none of that sends the kind of message that needed to be sent Friday night.
When a manager get ejected, the umpires are giving him one of his strongest powers as a manager. That is, coming out and getting his team fired up en route to being ejected. Also, much of what managers do to benefit their team is done before the game when they decide who to bring up and send down and how to arrange their players in the batting order. All and all, ejecting a manager is a pathetic way for an umpire to act like he is assertive and willing to do anything to control the game like he should. After ejecting 2 managers to no avail, ejecting a 3rd manager, as the umpiring crew did Friday night, is just about as helpful in terms of keeping a game in control as ejecting a fan.
What the umpires needed to do was eject David Price but they did not because baseball is a sport caught up in nostalgia and one that is rapidly showing its inability to create firm rules that would take umpire interpretations out of the game. This is shown most notably by the warning system in baseball. According to the current MLB regulations, if a pitcher throws at a batter the umpire can issue a warning if the beaning was deemed intentional. However, the umpire can also eject the player right away if the beaning is deemed REALLY intentional.
Now I'm not sure about you but it would probably be for the best of the MLB did not ask its umpires to pinpoint the placement of a particular pitch on the spectrum of intention.
Anyway, the home plate umpire Friday night issued a warning on the blatant Price pitch to the back of David Ortiz and then when Price hit Carp just a few innings later did not kick Price out of the game. Once again that is another example of a judgment call within the list of what is expected of an umpire. After 1 warning is issued for a hit batter, most umpires eject the next pitcher to hit a batter. But what a surprise, that is not an actual rule. Once a warning is issued, the player warned cannot be ejected until he once again commits a transgression deemed intentional.
Anyway I have said it once and I will say it again. The umpiring crew of Friday night's game between the Red Sox and Rays let the game get out of control. They should have been obligated by the dictation of the MLB rule-book to eject David Price after at least one of the hit batter situations during the game. They were not and by letting Price stay in the game, they exposed a number of flaws in the rules that bind the game of baseball. Today the Red Sox are displeased with these umpires for letting their players get hit without retribution while baseball's higher ups should be displeased with these umpires for exposing their inability to enact in game justice against a player.
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