Jose Urena Was Wrong, Keith Hernandez Wasn’t

Last night, Jose Urena channeled his inner Roger Clemens and instead of buzzing a player off the plate or hitting him in the butt, he threw his hardest first pitch of the season directly at Ronald Acuna.  Put simply, it was as dirty and dangerous as a play as there is in baseball.

Hidden beneath what Urena did, there lies a hard-nosed old-school baseball philosophy which harkens back to intimidating pitchers like Bob Gibson and Pedro Martinez.  Don’t let a batter get too comfortable in the batter’s box, especially a red hot hitter like Acuna.

With respect to Acuna, he is hitting .339/.433/.714 with three doubles, six homers, and 17 RBI against the Marlins this season.  He had three straight games with a leadoff homer.  In a different day and age, getting plunked or brushed off the plate might’ve been expected.  That philosophy was clumsily explained by Hernandez during yesterday’s telecast:

Again, Hernandez is explaining an old school philosophy where if you are hitting bombs and leaning over the plate, the pitcher’s duty is to bust a batter in and make them uncomfortable. And as he explained, when you do hit someone, you hit them in the “fanny” as Keith likes to call it.

The ultimate issue here is people creating a divide that doesn’t need to exist between an old-school philosophy and the modern game.  After all, Noah Syndergaard threw a pitch up and somewhat in to Alcides Escobar, who was having a great postseason, on the first pitch of Game 3 of the 2015 World Series.

Looking at Syndergaard, some of that old school philosophy is alive and well in younger players.  It is important to note when Syndergaard has utilized that old school philosophy of throwing inside or retaliating, he has done it the right way.  He has thrown it up but not near the head.  He threw a fastball behind Chase Utley, but not close enough for that fastball to actually make contact with Utley.

Of course, in the case of Syndergaard, he has always had terrific control, so when he does these things, you can trust him in sending that message even if there still exists a possibility he could miss.

That said, what Syndergaard has done is not what Urena did.  Urena stepped to the mound not just to make a batter uncomfortable.  He went to the mound with an intent to injure.  That’s what you are doing when you throw a 98 MPH fastball right at someone in a spot where he cannot possibly get out of the way.

There is no defending Urena’s actions, but there is defending the mindset where you make batters uncomfortable at the plate.  That’s part of a mindset.  There’s just a right way and a wrong way to do it.  As Keith noted, the right way is to brush the batter back or hit him in the fanny.  That’s not remotely close to what Urena did, and that’s why he’s entirely in the wrong.

 

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