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For those readers who are missing football games with de-cleating tackles and good old fashioned violence, fear not because all you have to do is watch a recent MLB game and you will certainly get your fill of rugby-like scrums. The St. Louis Cardinals discovered this growing trend with their recent homestand against the New York Mets.
The Mets seem to be playing with a chip on their proverbial shoulder since they have had a batter hit by a pitch 19 times in the last 20 games this season. Angry sentiments of expecting opponents to hit Met batters spilled over in their recent road game against the Cardinals. In the top of the eighth inning in this football game disguised as a baseball matchup on April 27th, Cardinals reliever Genesis Cabrera hit Mets batter J.D. Davis squarely in the foot on a full count fastball that caused Davis to exit the game early. Ok, pitches do get away from pitchers and batters have and will also get hit by wild pitches; being hit by an errant pitch is part and parcel of the game of baseball. What seems to be going on is the fact that Mets are crying foul for the frequency of their batters getting hit by multiple teams this early in the season.
In the archaic, unwritten rulebook of baseball, a hit batter deserves at least a retaliatory chin music throw by the aggrieved team, right? Well, that’s exactly what happened when Mets reliever Yoan Lopez threw a hard fastball high and inside on his first pitch to Cardinals DH Nolan Arenado. Almost on cue, Arenado took exception to the pitch and things quickly got out of hand including Cardinals first base coach Stubby Clapp taking the Mets’ Pete Alonso to the ground in a nice football tackle (Alonso was hit in the head by a pitch on Tuesday night and probably felt justified in attacking the Cardinals bench.) If there is a statistic for bench-clearing brawls per inning, I would like to see how many of these skirmishes have brewed up so far in the month of April. Folks, just remember that April is the coldest month of the season and things have not heated up literally yet. What will July or August bring if we face a nation-wide heat wave? Despite the Mets arguing about being the target of evil pitchers out to do harm, the current MLB average hit-by-pitch per team is seven and no other team besides the Mets have been hit more than 11 times. In reality, the MLB average is actually down to just 1.14% of plate appearances so far in April, which is the lowest since the 2018 season. You can argue that there are “slippery baseballs” this season or that the Mets are being specifically targeted but the fact remains that truth has a way of blurring perception. The St. Louis Cardinals have no doubt developed a new seasonal rival and their next meeting with the Mets will no doubt provide a few fireworks on the mount and at the plate.
