BALTIMORE – Marcus Stroman plans to challenge his six-game suspension and undisclosed fine from Major League Baseball by arguing that an errant pitch over Caleb Joseph’s head got away and that he “would never throw at someone … ever.”
The discipline came down on the Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Wednesday for “intentionally throwing a pitch in the head area” of the Baltimore Orioles catcher in an announcement made by Joe Garagiola Jr., MLB’s senior vice-president of standards and operations ruling.
Stroman is appealing, and while success is unlikely, a reasonable argument can be made that since home plate umpire Ted Barrett didn’t eject him at the time, it’s strange for baseball officials to become convinced of his intent after the fact.
Asked what he plans to say during his appeal, Stroman replied: “Obviously that I would never intentionally throw at someone’s head, that’s not in my nature, you know what I mean? That’s pretty much it, that’s not my game, it’s something I would never do, I would never intentionally go after someone, it doesn’t make sense to me, that’s how bizarre it is to me. We’ll see what happens, it’s in the appeal process and that’s pretty much all I can say right now.”
Working against Stroman is the timing of the play, coming shortly after Giancarlo Stanton and Chase Headley were both hit in the face by pitches.
The facts in Stroman’s case don’t look good – he threw over the head of Joseph an inning after he had a run-in at the plate with Blue Jays shortstop Jose Reyes – and then stared down the Orioles dugout after words were exchanged on his way off the field.
“I don’t think that’s my place to comment. It’s hard enough as it is,” Stroman replied when asked if he felt the Stanton and Headley incidents factored into his suspension. “I’m trying to keep my head down now, deal with it, and we’ll see what happens.”
Stroman said he’s reaching out to Joseph through a mutual friend and Joseph told the Baltimore Sun they haven’t connected yet, “but there’s been a lot going on here in Baltimore. At some point, if he does, I’ll be ready to talk at any point.”
The message Stroman wants to deliver?
“Letting him know that wasn’t my intention,” he said, “that’s pretty much it.”
While Stroman faces suspension, Orioles reliever Darren O’Day, who clearly hit Jose Bautista in the eighth inning Tuesday in retaliation for the pegging of Nick Markakis by Aaron Loup an inning earlier, is likely to be hit with the standard $750 fine.
The difference underlines the difference in baseball culture between exacting vengeance “properly,” by hitting a player in the back or lower body, and risking a more serious incident with a high pitch.
“In the last week we have seen two guys get hit in the head, both guys go to the hospital,” said Joseph. “There’s life outside of baseball and a lot of guys like going home to their wives and kids. I’m not the judge, I have no idea of intent. Doesn’t really matter to me. There’s just really no place for that in baseball here.”
Stroman, of course, doesn’t want to get that rep.
“I don’t have a bad intention bone in my body,” he said. “Like I said, I would never intentionally throw at anyone, I respect the game, respect players way too much to ever do anything like that.”
