Mark Reynolds hit a home run against the Angels on Saturday night. The next time he came to the plate, Ervin Santana hit him in the head, forcing him out of the game and keeping him from playing yesterday. Reynolds believes it was intentional. Here’s Reynolds:
“I think he hit me on purpose. I don’t think he tried to hit me in the head. I think he hit me on purpose. He threw a first-pitch slider. Why would he throw me a first-pitch slider and then hit me with the next pitch? Why didn’t he just hit me with the first pitch?”
What Reynolds doesn’t say is that he swung at the slider and fouled it off. Because he swings at everything. I didn’t see it so I don’t know where that slider was, but knowing Reynolds it was probably aimed at his head too.
But even if it wasn’t, I don’t know that I follow Reynolds’ logic here. If Santana was out to hit him intentionally, why bother throwing the slider in the first place? Why not just plunk him immediately? If anything, doing it on pitch two makes it seem less intentional, not more. Sort of dilutes the purpose of the purpose pitch.
Anyway, the best part of this is that on Sunday Orioles’ pitcher Alfredo Simon retaliated by hitting Mark Tumbo. And unlike most pitchers who do that, he didn’t claim it got away from him or something. He came right out and said it was a purpose pitch. Of course when you realize that there’s a non-trivial chance that Simon killed a guy last winter it probably shouldn’t be all that surprising that he’d own up to something like that.
