Beanball War Ensues With Baltimore After Bogaerts Hit By Pitch With A Helmet Shot
· Yahoo Sports
There wasn’t a lot that was extraordinary in the San Diego Padres’ 9-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles yesterday, but there were some extracurricular fireworks. Shortstop Xander Borgaerts was hit in the helmet by Orioles starter Trey Gibson, and for a few frightening moments Bogaerts stayed down.
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Bogaerts somehow stayed in the game to score a run, although he was removed later and replaced by Sung-Mun Song at short. After that, though, things got feisty, as Padres pitchers began throwing inside with purpose pitches that had little to do with controlling the strike zone and getting outs.
"Xander, we took him out of the game as a precaution," San Diego manager Craig Stammen said in an AP report via ESPN. "He was feeling good on the field, he was feeling all right. And then he just started not feeling as good -- a little spasm back here in the neck."
The pitch was clocked at 93.5 mph, and it knocked the helmet off Bogaerts’ head, so the concerns were understandable. The Padres trainer examined the area around Bogaerts’ left ear, as the ball looked to have hit just behind that spot.
Padres pitchers kept getting more aggressive with their offerings, and finally Orioles star Gunnar Henderson took a rib shot from reliever Ron Marinaccio.
The reliever was quickly ejected, and Stammen soon followed as he proceeded to argue the call with his hand over his mouth to prevent another incident with Jomboy, a multimedia site that publicized his encounter with an aggressive fan earlier in the week.
"They definitely thought he did it on purpose. That was not my understanding or my take from it. Ultimately that's why I went out and argued," Stammen said. "Just didn't think it was warranted. It would have been fine if they just warned everybody, and we'd have been fine, and move on from there.
Stammen is right about the warning part, but the idea that these weren’t deliberate purpose pitches was laugable. Marinaccio also pointed out the lack of warnings, which wouldn’t have been necessary if a quiet conversation with Stammen hadn’t happened, given that Gibson was removed from the game right after he hit Bogaerts.
"I guess shocked a little bit," Marinaccio said about being tossed. "I could understand the visual, a couple guys pitching inside earlier, but there's no warnings."
Henderson wasn’t happy about what happened, either. He spent the rest of the game being hunted at the plate, as reliever Bradgley Rodriguez also threw inside on him.
"They had their two opportunities in my previous at-bat and missed, so thought that should have been the end of it," Henderson said. "But I guess they were trying to get payback, so I guess we're even now."