CINCINNATI — “Take matters into our own hands.” “Whatever means necessary.” “Any measures possible.” On Wednesday evening, Cincinnati Reds manager David Bell decided that because umpires are not protecting his players the way he’d like, they need to do it themselves, a rare public advocation of on-field violence from a sitting manager.
Thus began Chapter 72 of the Pirates-Reds hit-by-pitch saga, now in its eighth season. Aroldis Chapman and Andrew McCutchen are two and three teams removed, respectively, from the genesis of the tale, yet on and on it spins, and Wednesday Clay Holmes joined the lore.
The Pirates led 7-0 in the bottom of the eighth inning when Eugenio Suarez, the first batter of the inning, came to the plate. Holmes hit Suarez on the hand with a 95 mph first-pitch fastball. Suarez walked slowly toward the mound — that he got as close as he did to Holmes without anyone leaving either dugout is remarkable — and spoke to Holmes before heading to first base and, eventually, leaving the game. Suarez said X-rays initially showed no fractures.
“In that situation, up by [seven], I don’t know if they’re going to hit me on purpose,” Suarez said. “That’s why I walked up to him and asked him if he hit me on purpose. He said no, definitely not. I just said, I just want to make sure because I don’t like that pitch up and in, right on my face. The catcher [Elias Diaz] told me too, in Spanish — he’s from Venezuela, he told me in Spanish — ‘No, we don’t want to hit you.’ ”
After a lengthy argument with the umpiring crew, Bell was ejected.
The game ended without incident; Reds reliever Raisel Iglesias threw up and in on Bryan Reynolds with a 97 mph 0-2 fastball before striking him out, but that was it. But Bell made clear his thoughts on the matter during a postgame media briefing, one that Reds media relations twice tried to shut down before cutting Bell off near the end of his final answer and ending the session.
“We know they’ll do it intentionally,” Bell said. “I was doing what I could to protect our players. Clearly we’re not going to get protected, so we’ve got to do whatever we can. We’ve got to take matters into our own hands.”
Bell believes baseball’s legal system has failed him. Let’s hear the arguments for the prosecution:
He’s right when he says the Pirates will intentionally throw at the Reds. They’ve been doing it since 2013. Chapman hit McCutchen with 101 mph fastball in the shoulder in 2012 and threw at Neil Walker’s head the following year; the day after the Walker knockdown, Charlie Morton drilled Shin-Soo Choo with the first pitch he threw. Six years later, after Derek Dietrich admired a homer he put into the Allegheny River, Chris Archer intentionally threw behind Dietrich with the first pitch. Archer received a five-game suspension for that pitch, which started a dugout-clearing shoving match.
Holmes hit the first batter with the first pitch up seven in the eighth inning, a good time to hit a batter so that the other team knows it was intentional without jeopardizing the game’s outcome.
The Pirates have hit Suarez before, most notably last April, when Jameson Taillon broke his thumb.
And for the defense:
Holmes walked 15 batters in 15⅔ innings in the minors before the Pirates promoted him, and six in 10⅓ innings in the majors before Wednesday. He’s not exactly known for pinpoint control. Holmes said he did not intentionally hit Suarez.
If the Pirates were going to throw at somebody, why not Dietrich, who continued to clobber them this series? Why Suarez?
“Clearly, we’re not going to get protected by the umpires and the league,” Bell said. “That’s been made clear. Our players need to take it into their — they need to do whatever they need to do to protect themselves, period. And I’ll back them no matter what that is. Whatever means necessary. Clearly we’re not going to get protected.
“For some reason we think it’s OK to throw at people, for whatever reason. Maybe that was OK many years ago and we’re still living by some rules that I don’t know about, that it’s OK to still intentionally throw at our players. The umpires think it’s OK. The league has made it clear, I think, that it’s somewhat OK. Somebody’s going to get hurt, and we need to take any measures possible. Our players need to do whatever they need to do to stick up for themselves, to protect themselves, so it doesn’t happen. They need to protect themselves, they need to protect their career. Whatever that takes.”
The follow-up is so natural it almost doesn’t need to be asked. Bell could be referring to throwing at Pirates batters, charging the mound or both. But when asked what he was advocating, he demurred.
“It’s a helpless feeling to not be protected, so whatever that takes,” he said.
He paused and looked at the media assembled around him.
“Do you guys have any ideas?”
Bill Brink: bbrink@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrinkPG.
First Published: May 30, 2019, 12:03 a.m.
