Mr. Dempster, sir, don’t you know that by throwing at Alex Rodriguez you actually make him appear almost sympathetic??
It’s about the only way I can imagine to do that, too.
I am not at all a Yankee fan but I had to admit there was some poetic justice in the HR A-Rod hit off of you later in the game. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.
Let’s not forget Mattingly’s role. I’m at a loss as to why he sits Gonzalez, Crawford, Uribe and Ellis. I understand guys need rest, but half of our productive hitters on the same day? What did he expect?
And the Dodgers need to find someone better than Hairston to give Gonzalez the occasional day off. He is a truly sucky first baseman.
Hopefully, Wilson will be activated today or tomorrow and we can put this Brandon League experiment to pasture.
I’m a Yankee fan but despise A-Rod. If his getting drilled fires up the team and makes them play hard and win, great. They may not like the guy, but when someone takes an obvious shot at your batter it’s got to get the adrenaline going. The umpire was wrong not to eject the pitcher when it was so obvious, especially on a 3-0 count.
Day game after a night game lineup. I don’t blame him for that. I blame him for using League in a late inning role, but not for the lineup. Guys gotta rest sometime and I think it’s probably better to have a very weak lineup for one game than a sort of weakened lineup for several.
The bright spot in the whole League mess is that next year I’m going to be a closer for the Dodgers! Sure, I’m 58, fat, don’t have a left ACL and probably couldn’t throw a strike if my life depended on it. I’m still a step up from League.
The Dodgers have lost 2 in a row. The only way to appease the Gods of Baseball is to sacrifice Brandon League. Immolate him on a pile of Louisville Sluggers!
Well, at least the Reds have beaten the Diamondbacks for you.
Huh, the Rangers scored 11 tonight…
…in the 3rd inning. All nine guys scored and nary a homer! Plus stealing home in the 1st.
The NL Central race is TIGHT right now. Who knows…
Heh. Mariners radio post-game show host couldn’t think of any term better than “brain fart” to describe Kendrys Morales making the third out of an inning by jogging, not sliding, into third base.
Point taken, although I think Gonzalez is the only guy out of that bunch that hadn’t already had a day off in the previous week.
How I’m following the Astros right now - I saw the 14-1 score in the scoreboard, and my first thought was “I hope it wasn’t one of the 3 decent rookie pitchers who got hammered” - checked the box score, and nope it was just one of the useless placeholder guys, so no harm done.
Ryan Dempster gets five days for drilling A-Hole. Odd for a player to get suspended for something he wasn’t even ejected for, but appropriate.
He was probably going to be skipped a start anyway, with some off days coming up and in consideration of serious recent suckitude, so no biggie.
The ump really blew that one. As much as the guy may deserve to get hit, you can’t let a pitcher throw at a guy four times and then give him (and the other team) a warning. That’s just poor application of the rules.
He only threw at him twice.
Granted, the first pitch went behind him (below the knee and above the ankle) so if that one hit him it would have plunked him in the calf.
The next two pitches were inside, but not even close to hitting him. A-Roid never even had to move, nor did he. They were normal inside pitches. The last pitch plunked him, but agsin, not a big deal. It hit him in the shoulder area. Below his shoulder, in fact, so his head wasn’t in any danger.
Did he hit him on purpose? Sure looked like it to me. But people are making it out to be a four pitch head-hunting fest and it was nothing of the kind.
I would have liked to see A-Roid rush the mound. I wonder how many Yankees would have taken swings at hi, or slipped a good kick his way? 
He didn’t rush the mound because he wasn’t hurt. Also, all those HGH and PEDs he pumped into his body, the ball just bounced off of him.
LALALALALALALALALALALALALA. I CAN’T HEAR YOU! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!
:p. (picture this as the Annoying Orange doing his tongue thing…Nyah! Nyah!nyah!
Yeah, sure he did. The first pitch was behind his legs, and that should’ve been enough for a warning right there.
They were also nowhere near the plate. There’s no excuse for letting that pass when the first pitch went behind the hitter.
It hit him in the elbow. And I never said he was in danger. That’s not the point. The point is that you can’t let a pitcher repeatedly throw at a guy. Your version is that Dempster threw at him twice and got a warning the second time, mine is that he threw four pitches nowhere near the plate and hit him on the fourth. That’s just shitty umpiring no matter how much of a dick the player is. Unless my memory is failing me, the reason the warnings exist is so umpires can intervene in situations like that before someone gets plunked. Although if we’re going to talk safety, yes, it’s kind of irresponsible to give a pitcher a free pass to keep throwing at a guy until he hits him.
Gee, you think so?
You are being way too sensitive. Quite frankly, you could not prove intent until the fourth pitch actually hit him. Saying the middle two pitches weren’t close doesn’t matter. They weren’t close to hitting him, either. So, you have the first pitch to go on and the last pitch. The first pitch went behind him. Have you ever see a pitch get away from a pitcher? Sure you have. Randy Johnson used to throw above guys heads with a 100 mph fast ball to get the batters attention. (Remember kruk in all star game, that wasn’t the only time he did it). Gibson threw inside all the time. So did Maddux. So do a lot of pitchers. And occasionally a ball gets away from the pitcher. The ump would have been chastised for warning the pitcher and the benches after the first pitch. Ad pitches two and three were not close enough to warn him. When the fourth pitch hit him in the arm (you say elbow, ok elbow) it was the first time he was able to give the warnings. Which he did. Warning the Yankees sucked for the Yankees, but it was the right thing to do, unless you want a brawl and someone getting a CC Sabathis fastball in his ear.
I’m not defending the guy, but I think you are over-reacting a bit much. You simply cannot prove intent with those first three pitches. You just can’t.
Oh, ignoring the last two games, what the Dodgers have done has been truly one for the ages. An amazing run. The only bad thing for Dodger fans is they are stuck with Mattingly for at least another year.
I’m not being sensitive, I’m being dismissive of a bad argument. The umpire does not need to prove intent. This is not a legal proceeding. Sometimes umps issue warnings even on HBPs that are not obviously intentional because they are trying to forestall retaliation. They are specifically empowered to deal with situations like these, and O’Nora didn’t do anything. The first pitch of the at bat was a fastball behind Rodriguez’s knees. It wasn’t a pitch that failed to break or whatever, it was a pitch thrown several feet inside and the intent was obvious to anybody with eyeballs. After that Dempster threw two fastballs nowhere close to the plate, and then he finally hit him with a pitch. The umpire could have justifiably stepped in at any stage, but he did nothing until the pitcher had his fourth chance. And of course he then warned the Yankees as well as the Sox. Wasn’t that inappropriate? I mean how could he prove their intent?
By whom?
By what standard?
I don’t need to prove his intent because I’m not a prosecutor. I also know what his intent was because I can see. Everybody watching the game knew exactly what was going on.
+1, except to clarify that the umpire *has *to warn both teams, not just one.
The remarkable thing to me besides O’Nora simply enjoying the show is that the Yankees never retaliated, warning notwithstanding. A-Hole has no support even on his own team, much less among the umpires. But MLB did what they had to with the suspension - they can’t declare open season on anybody.