Mets fans were so angry over Roger Clemens hitting Mike Piazza in the head in 2000, and the subsequent bat throwing incident, they wanted blood when Clemens was finally pitching in Shea Stadium two years later. It didn’t matter that Shawn Estes wasn’t a teammate in 2000. What mattered was Clemens needed justice.

Anytime a pitcher throws a ball near a players head, there is going to be a visceral reaction from fans, and there should be. It is a dirty play.

On Tuesday, Drew Anderson went up and in twice on Michael Conforto. Anderson did control it a bit, and while it brushed Conforto back, he was not getting hit in the helmet by the pitch. But if he was hit in the head, Mets fans would want blood. They would want him suspended, and Major League Baseball would have been well within their rights to suspend him.

So far this year, the Phillies have hit three Mets batters. There is already animosity between the teams, and in this particular game, we saw that animosity grow.

So when Jacob Rhame takes the mound and throws one behind Rhys Hoskins back, he earned a suspension. When Rhame knocks Hoskins back twice, he earned the suspension. When Rhame goes up and in FOUR TIMES, he earns a suspension.Again, if you switch the names, there’s not one Mets fans saying Rhame shouldn’t be suspended.

The counter-argument is Rhame didn’t have intent. The basis behind this claim is Rhame is a bad pitcher with poor control, and as a result, he wasn’t really throwing at Hoskins. Rather, he’s just terrible.

Assume for a second this is correct. Why should this matter? Why should we allow pitchers to recklessly throw at batters? Why should Hoskins be hit in the helmet and suffer an injury just because Rhame is an awful pitcher? Shouldn’t we penalize those pitchers who go inside knowing they don’t have the ability or control to go inside?

Really, when you break it down, pitchers should not be allowed to throw near a batter’s head, intentional or otherwise. Sure, sometimes a pitch gets away. It happens. No one is suggesting you should penalize a pitcher for one errant pitch. However, when you go inside FOUR TIMES and brush a batter off the plate TWICE, you need to be suspended.

If you did it on purpose, you earned the suspension. If you are terrible, and you can’t handle throwing inside and you didn’t anyway thereby risking a severe injury to a better, you earned the suspension.

If you are a Mets fan, instead of questioning why Rhame was suspended, the question is why Anderson wasn’t. After all, he purposefully threw in hard to Conforto with what looked like clear intent.