| You Crowd the Plate, You Will Get Beaned |
| By Sally Haase April 12, 2013 There was a benches clearing brawl between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres Thursday night. The reason for the brawl was Padres outfielder Carlos Quentin taking exception to being hit by a pitch from Zack Greinke of the Dodgers. Greinke put his non-throwing shoulder down to deflect Quentin and ended up with a broken collar bone. Quentin was ejected from the game and will likely face a suspension from Major League Baseball, but it will not be the 30 days that Greinke is expected to be out of commission. Greinke does have a history of hitting Quentin with pitches…along with the majority of pitchers in baseball. If anyone has seen Quentin play you know what his batting stance looks like- feet are planted and wider than shoulder width apart; his left elbow is out and close to the plate and he stands as close to the plate as he can possibly get. Is it any wonder why Quentin gets beaned so much? This is baseball we are dealing with and a pitcher needs to go inside in order to be effective and a batter may get hit; it’s just a part of the game. Quentin knows his stance increases his chances of being hit by a pitch and the fact that he like to extend his arms on his swing forces the pitchers to go inside in an effort to jam him to get him out. Quentin’s problem is he never makes an effort to get out of the way of an inside pitch. If he sees it coming at him, he will turn into the pitch and take the base. When you do that, do you really have the right to charge the mound after you are hit? I say no. Whatever Quentin’s problem with Greinke is I hope it is over because the Padres and Dodgers will play each other a lot this season and the game of bean ball will quickly be tried and childish |
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