On September 22 last year, the Mets hosted the Phillies at Citi Field. While the Phillies’ hopes had already been dashed, the Mets were in the hunt for a Wild Card spot. They were on a three-game losing streak and were on their way to a fourth when shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera changed that, swatting a walk-off three-run home run off of Edubray Ramos in the bottom of the 11th inning. Cabrera flung his bat and raised his arms in triumph.
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It was a scene that Ramos apparently hasn’t forgotten. With the Mets in Philadelphia facing the Phillies for the first time this season, Ramos got the opportunity to face Cabrera with one out in the top of the eighth inning of a 2-2 game on Monday night. The first pitch Ramos threw to Cabrera was a fastball high and inside, not anywhere close to the strike zone, hitting the backstop when catcher Cameron Rupp couldn’t reach far enough to catch it. Cabrera, understandably, wasn’t happy about it and began walking towards Ramos. Ramos started walking in as well, and Rupp intervened with Cabrera before anything could happen.
Home plate umpire Alan Porter issued warnings to both benches, which drew Phillies manager Pete Mackanin’s ire. Mackanin was very visibly frustrated with Porter as he attempted to get an explanation, but ended up getting ejected. Ramos finished out the at-bat with Cabrera by walking him. After getting Yoenis Cespedes to strike out, Joely Rodriguez relieved Ramos and promptly served up a tie-breaking two-run home run to Jay Bruce — his second homer of the night.
Entering Monday’s appearance, Ramos had unintentionally walked 11 of the 174 batters he faced in the majors, a low 6.3 percent rate. He displayed similarly good control in the minors, unintentionally walking 49 of 833 batters faced (7.7%). It would seem especially coincidental that a reliever with the caliber of control that Ramos has displayed would just happen to throw so wildly at a batter who showed him up in a very memorable moment last season. Perhaps that is enough for commissioner Rob Manfred to take a look into the matter and punish Ramos.