Plunk’d
Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP
How can Vicente Padilla play Pin-the-pill-on-ass with Mark Teixeira twice in the same game and get nothing? (For the record, I don’t define being put on waivers by the Rangers a punishment. Ask Padilla’s ERA, it’ll tell you it’s a gift)
I’m not saying Burnett wasn’t looking to sizzle Texas’ Nelson Cruz a little, but two starts? Burnett was immediately warned by home plate ump Doug Eddings and neither side fanned any further flames. A fine? Sure, okay. A suspension following aggressive postgame chatter in the locker room? Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. Six games served to the guy that didn’t hit anyone? Stop it.
The league’s stance on outbursts and retaliations is begging for redefining because it doesn’t make sense. Why was Eddings’ warning seemingly usurped? Why is a high and tight fastball worse than a screaming fit? Why is popping a guy twice in one game okay as long as you do it first?
“That’s a fastball in, man, whether it got knocked down or not,” Burnett said postgame. “I mean, that’s where it’s going. Warnings are warnings, man … You’ve still got to go about your business and pitch in.”
Yeah, man. Right on…man. Zambrano went out of his gourd just six days before Tuesday’s incident. It was everywhere, because…well, because people like watching athletes go applejacks in public. Even in the same game in which Burnett was suspended, most of the talk coming out of that game was what a headhunter Flotilla has been in his career. Explain to me the justice? Explain it to me like I’m two years old. Wait, no. Explain it to me like I’m five years old so you won’t feel compelled to use baby talk. Baby talk drives me crazy. Crazy enough to get a six game suspension for seemingly no reason.
The AP beckons.
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