Baseball's Code of Retribution

So you're the Tampa Bay Rays or whatever you're called these days. You're in or near first place in June and playing your nearest competitor. You take the field with a starting pitcher whose ERA is 3.24 and you tell him to throw at a batter and earn a certain ejection in the first inning? Is it really worth it to uphold some sort of childish Code if it threatens your chances of winning the game?

 

Shields didn't have anything tonight, as evidenced by Boston's three-run first that included an absolute moon-shot by Manny over the monster seats.

He figured what the hell, may as well hit Crisp when he comes up. He did it right, around the knee, and Crisp, who apparently decided yesterday that he's the toughest guy in Boston, charged.

Francona really should have said something to Crisp after his comments last night. Looks like he didn't, and we get this silliness tonight.

 

I also think the Rays know the Red Sox are the team to beat and maybe, just maybe, they were trying to show they're not afraid of the big, bad Sox.

 

Good for them. They set the tone for the season when they took on the Yankees in a spring training brawl.

 

Maybe, but I think it was more that they had to do something after Crisp's idiocy last night. He could have done some serious damage to Iwamura's knee with that slide.

 

I don't know if I've been in a cave or what, but what sparked all this? Before the throw at Coco, I mean.

 

You're right. I think it has everything in the world to do with that. I just mean the fact that it got really heated, really fast.

 

It goes back a ways. Back to when Pedro was with the Sox. There was something with Gerald Williams.

 

The Rays are showing they are not pussy pushovers anymore.

 

Last night, Crisp was mad because Bartlett blocked the bag with his leg as he went in head-first. So later in the game, he tried to take Iwamura's knees out on a steal of second.

Iwamura got out of the way, applying the tag, but what happened this evening almost happened yesterday after that.

 

Crisp was upset last night because the Rays' shortstop blocked second base on his head-first slide, so he wiped out Tampa's 2B with a forearm on another slide later in the game and talked trash afterward, telling the Rays to take it out on him and not another Boston player.

 

Last night, Crisp got blocked at second on a sliding play, then took it out on Iwamura next time around with a hard slide that led to hard feelings.