In Baseball, When ‘Unwritten Rules’ are Broken….

Here’s what happened in Monday’s game between the Padres and Rangers. 

The Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. is one of the game’s up and coming stars. But he came under fire on Monday for what he did in the 8th inning of a game with the Rangers. How so? One of baseball’s “unwritten rules” is that a batter should take a 3-0 pitch if their team is up big.  Tatis Jr. not only swung, but he also hit a Grand Slam. It was his league-leading 11th homer of the season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1EWreYt8UI

Was Tatis unsportspersonlike? Not at all! Play the game hard! If you can’t get a guy out, that’s your problem.

But there is a problem. The Rangers found themselves down 14-3 in the 8th without a prayer of coming back. What, then, are teams likely to do? The offended team will likely throw a beanball or two. That’s another of baseball’s ‘unwritten rule,’ and it’s the stuff of which brawls are made.

After the game, Tatis Jr. felt the need to apologize as the Padres’ first-year manager, Jayce Tingler, threw him under the bus. “We had a little bit of a comfortable lead. We’re not trying to run the score up or anything like that,” Tingler said in his postgame interview.

My take is that Tingler, a former Rangers coach and minor league GM. was probably trying to smooth things over with his former team.

Knowing baseball and human nature as it is, there’s bound to be fallout from what happened in Monday’s game. Here’s an alternative: Play the game!