It was nice to see a Jays pitcher finally protect his teammates on Tuesday night in the Bronx.
While I don't condone throwing at hitters to even a score, Tuesday night's brouhaha in the Bronx was just what the Blue Jays needed to let the baseball world know that enough was enough. The proof was in the stats, folks. Starting in the fifth inning on August 26th at Rogers Centre when Rays' lefty Scott Kazmir plunked Jays' rookie Travis Snider and ending with Yankees' reliever Mark Melancon drilling Jays' All-Star Aaron Hill in the back 21 games later, 15 Toronto hitters were hit by pitches, eight in five games versus the Yankees.
Over that same time span, no team in the American League was hit more than seven times. And some of the plunkings were not run of the mill off-speed pitches off shoes and brushing off jerseys. Marco Scutaro was hit square in the helmet by Josh Beckett fastball at Fenway Park on August 28th and Randy Ruiz was hit in the face by Josh Towers heater nine days later. Luckily neither hitter was seriously injured although both couldn't continue in those games.
With every hitter that was hit by a pitch Blue Jays' manager Cito Gaston looked more and more perturbed. Not that he would ever tell his pitchers to hit an opponent - he said as much in an interview the other day - but there is an unwritten code that says pitchers have to protect their own hitters. It's baseball's version of frontier justice, an eye for an eye if you will. So on Tuesday night, with the Jays well in front of the Yankees and two more hitters hit by pitches, reliever Jesse Carlson remembered the code and fired a pitch behind Jorge Posada. The Yankees catcher glowered out and mouthed "you don't wanna do that" twice at the Jays' pitcher who came down off the mound to confront the veteran Yankee whiner. This from a pitch that was a foot behind his ass, not up around his head like several Jays' hitters have seen in recent weeks.
And then it all came to a head three batters later when Posada, with his Latino machismo on full boil, came around to score on a double and then threw an elbow at Carlson as he passed him behind the plate and the fight was on. Instead of realizing that he or one of the other Yankee hitters might have to face some retribution, Posada took a cheap shot at Carlson who spun around and came back swinging with the help of catcher Rod Barajas.
Well, maybe a fight is a little strong. You see base-"brawls" are, for the most part, much ado about nothing. A lot of pushing and shoving, although in the post-scrum aftermath Carlson had a knot on his head the size of a radish from someone giving him a crack under the pile-up. The result was the usual suspensions and fines and in the bigger picture the Yankees, on their way to the playoffs, had a lot more to lose than the Blue Jays except for face.
This should have been a bigger fight when, after watching several angles of the melee the next day, you could clearly see players who weren't involved in the main event like Yankee reserve Shelley Duncan or reliever Edwar Ramirez getting in cheap shots. That's why they were suspended or fined. It kind of reminded of another Blue Jays/Yankees brawl from 11 Septembers ago at the old Yankee Stadium when Roger Clemens beaned Scott Brosius, Hideki Irabu responded by drilling Shannon Stewart and it was go time. While all the players milled around, a coke-fuelled Darryl Strawberry threw a punch over the pile which led Jays' reliever Bill Risley to go ballistic and with the pile of players moved in front of the Blue Jays dugout Risley one-punched "Straw" on to the floor of the Toronto dugout. Now that was a fight!
So, in the end, I guess I do endorse what Carlson did. It was nice to see a Blue Jays pitcher finally being more interested in protecting his teammates than the length of his pants or his facial hair or whether the bill of his cap was bent or straight.
You see us Canadians are all born with a hockey mentality, drilled into us from watching a sport where if you get wronged you better be ready to chuck the knuckles and expect your teammates to watch your back.
Good on you, Jays for finally standing up to everyone else. It will go a long way to getting back the respect that your franchise used to have.
SEND ME YOUR QUESTIONS
With two weeks left on the 2009 schedule, I'd love to hear from you fans. Please send me your well thought out questions in the space below under the heading 'QUESTION FOR THE STATSMAN'. In my last column before the playoffs, I will answer what I deem to be the top 10 questions. Believe it or not, I do read every comment that you send in, whether good, bad or indifferent. The fact that you take to respond is much appreciated by the old statsman. It tells me that someone is interested. I might not always agree, but I applaud your passion for the game in general, and the Blue Jays specifically.
