And from the bush Twitter league, Sam LeCure adds…“Talk about your all time punk jobs! I’m just happy we won”
Thus, when Reds reliever Sam LeCure threw behind Buster Posey in the ninth inning of tonight’s 9-2 Reds win, in obvious retaliation for Dan Otero’s equally obvious accidental drilling of Joey Votto in the seventh, I initially thought it was OK. I figured Votto had been a target lately and LeCure was just doing with the baseball what Hudson did with his language in spring training. So I grabbed the stat sheet to see how many times Votto had been hit this season.
Zero.
The Reds’ most important and richest pllayer had not been hit once. So, in retaliation for his first hit-by-pitch of the season — by a rookie who was all over the place in his seventh big-league inning — the Reds went after the left leg of a Giant who missed most of 2011 because of what happened to his left leg.
Bush.
No wonder manager Bruce Bochy mouthed the words, “That’s f– bull–” in the dugout.
Bochy later elaborated on his expletive: “The kid (Otero) has got two weeks in the big-leagues. He’s trying to get through an inning. He’s trying to survive. He’s not trying to hit anybody. He was scuffling out there. I’m sure he was nervous.”
As for LeCure’s retaliation, Bochy said, “That’s how people get hurt. Here’s a guy (Posey) we lost for a long time last year and he gets a ball thrown at his kneecap.”
Repoz
Posted: April 25, 2012 at 05:35 AM |
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1. bfan Posted: April 25, 2012 at 06:59 AM (#4115525)And what does Votto not being hit all year have to do with whether or not he was thrown at by the SF pitcher, last night? Actually, a guy who has been hit a lot maybe stands close to the plate, or maybe doesn't get out of the way of pitches well, so Votto not having been hit all year is evidence that he was thrown at, last night.
Well, you could always try not being a complete asshat...
MLB needs to take a stand and start laying the wood to pitchers and managers who do this sort of thing. No one-start or two relief inning suspensions. Drop the hammer. Weeks. A month. It's dumb, it's counterproductive, and it has no place in baseball. And if the union freaks out, take it to the court of public opinion.
And I am perfectly fine with that. Provided, the batter in return gets to take his bat out to the mound, and have a swing at the pitcher's butt.
Sniping at people from behind the mound with your 90+mph FB is just so freakin' cowardly, it really pisses me off. If you really want to send a message, or hurt somebody, be a man about it, and ###### throw down.
This. When a message needs to be sent--which is a lot less often than major league managers seem to think--you plunk the guy in the butt.
In the NL, the pitcher has to bat.
Sam LeCure PA 2012: 0
Not when you're a reliever.
All of the (completely expected, rote-from-memory) whinging about assault and how purpose pitches and HBPs aren't part of the game is, as usual, stupid and idiotic. I suspect all of you people watch AL ball.
Why retaliate against accidents? That's Dusty, though.
The Red Sox must really hate Kevin Youkilis.
I guess you either didn't read the excerpt or have poor reading comprehension. Otero was clearly NOT throwing at Votto. He had no idea where the ball was going in the seventh. The game was still close when Votto was hit and it was in a situation where Otero definitely didn't want another baserunner. The retaliation against Posey was completely idiotic and classless.
Why? That sums it up concisely.
The problem with all of these silly HBP/retaliation issues (and threads) is they involve too much mindreading, and DiPerna's the only one who has the skill set for that. Was Otero throwing at Votto? Probably not, but that's not how the Reds saw it. Was LeCure retaliating? Certainly, but how? Was he "targeting the knee" and missed behind? Was he trying to throw higher and missed low? Was he just trying to throw behind? Was it ordered by Dusty or was he doing it on his own to have his teammate's back? Who ####### knows?
Examples? And who's your team? Other than Brandon Phillips' occasional jackassery and the brawl with St. Louis a couple of years ago (precipitated by Phillips), the Reds are a fairly vanilla group. Unless you think there's something sinister about Votto, Rolen, Bruce, etc. that's not known by the general public.
I know...but I'm not telling.
When have purpose pitches ever been routinely hucked at an NL starter? I recall a few stories about a few pitches thrown at Juan Marichal in the 60s, but that was because he was uniquely maniacal and considered a decent hitter. In the modern day 98% of the time they're thrown at the other team's best hitter regardless of whether the offending pitcher is still in the game, for the obvious reason that the pitcher is easy pickings and they want to get him out rather than put him on base. And the whole eye for an eye thing. I don't buy the whole AL-NL difference when it comes to this.
They're managed by Dusty, that's example enough.
That's the thing. We talk about the fact that pitchers have to bat as being a deterrent when it is in fact not.
Which makes Bockey leaving such a pitcher in in that situation so dumb many people here would think only Dusty Baker would do it. Or, he was willing to take the chance Otero would hit Votto, so retaliation was certainly called for.
Only because Posey's your guy. Even if Posey had stood still, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), and if it had hit him it would have been in the butt. Big freakin' deal. "Completely idiotic" is the notion that Sam LeCure, he of the k/bb of 1 and WHIP over 1.7, could target Posey's knee - or even hit it if he did.
Why retaliate against accidents? That's Dusty, though.
My sense from reading this article hundreds of times over the years is that teams also take offense to a pitcher being left in when he's so wild that he's dangerous. I guess the idea is that a fastball to the cheek or hand breaks the same bones whether or not the guy intended to throw it there.
It's often tough to figure out intent, but it makes no sense to assume HBPs are either all intentional or all unintentional when we know that's not true.
Before hitting Votto, Otero had thrown 5 pitches--all strikes. This "so wild" concept doesn't apply here.
He hit Votto with 2 outs and runners on 1st and 3rd in a 3-0 game in the 7th inning, which is not a typical time for an intentional HBP. Otero then walked Phillips on 4 pitches with the bases loaded to force in a run, which is some evidence that he simply didn't have much control last night (again, this wasn't apparent before he hit Votto).
You should. It's really quite short. Takes no time at all.
Gonzalez is about the least-offensive player one can think up.
Some economists took a look at this and concluded that in fact this does operate. Not that I bothered to read it of course! It's linked here somewhere.
Ages ago, the Cubs were getting killed by the Mets early and plunked one of the Mets stars, warnings issued (I think we had warnings by that time). Future Cub GM Ed Lynch was pitching for the Mets and needed to just finish the 5th to (almost certainly) get the win. But Lynch put his teammate ahead of his own record (wisely or not) and hit Moreland right in the ass. A beautiful pitch in its way. And you could see it all play through Moreland's mind -- "OK, this guy just hit me on purpose, I have to charge the mound now don't I? But it didn't hurt and he obviously wasn't trying to hurt me but surely being a man requires me to charge the mound, right?" The lamest charge to the mound and clearing of the benches ensued and Lynch was tossed. (Moreland too I assume).
And if you run a tracer on it, I reserve the right to substitute Jody Davis for Keith Moreland!
Ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, Bruce Bochy would have kicked Bruce Bochy's ass for making a statement like that.
I do believe I've heard a similar story before, involving a pitcher needing the win or else he was going to get sent down. I want to say it was attributed to Maddux, but I see no evidence of that one either.
Then he had about 250 surgeries and never got back to the majors.
Moreland was hit, but the Mets were actually losing that game. The Mets had given up 5 runs in the 4th and, after the fact, Lynch hit Moreland before inducing the last out without further damage. Scott Sanderson plunked the second guy (K Chapman) and was pulled (no word from Retrosheet as to whether it was an ejection). Sanderson would have gotten the win if it weren't for being removed.
When Jack Baldschun hit Gibson, Gibson threw his bat at Baldschun (presumably was tossed -- all BB-Ref has is that there was a pinch-runner for Gibson in the bottom of the 4th with a 5-1 lead. And I'm doubtful he was injured since he made his next start on only one day of rest)
EDIT: clarity (hopefully)
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