Baseball’s unwritten rules can be infuriating sometimes.
During Wednesday night’s game between the Marlins and Diamondbacks, Jose Fernandez beaned David Peralta in the helmet on an 0-2 pitch. Of course, it was a scary incident and pitches generally shouldn’t be anywhere near the head, but it clearly was unintentional. Anyone could see that. Well, apparently anyone but the Diamondbacks.
The DBacks were angered by Fernandez staying in the game, and idiotically retaliated by hitting Christian Yelich in the back with a pitch.
Arizona manager Chip Hale had some pretty dumb things to say afterward, per the Arizona Republic.
“Nobody should be pitching the ball up by somebody’s head,” Hale said. “That’s not the place to go. You can’t do that. People always (say), ‘Well, he didn’t mean to do it, of course.’ He probably didn’t mean to do it, but nobody knows that.”
Considering Fernandez immediately put his hands on his head and had a look of terror on his face when the ball made contact with Peralta, it’s fair to assume there’s approximately a zero percent chance there was any intent.
Fernandez and Yelich spoke on the matter as well, and they obviously made a lot more sense.
I got really scared,” Fernandez said. “It’s sad because I know the kid personally.”
“We didn’t hit their guy on purpose,” Yelich said. “Everybody knows that. I think they had a problem with [Fernandez] going to make sure he was OK, which I don’t really understand, because that’s a classy way to handle it. I mean, he’s buddies with the guy, so he’s not trying to hit him. He’s trying to make sure he’s OK. They had a problem with that for some reason.”
Peralta ended up being OK and passed all concussion tests afterward.
[h/t The Big Lead]
