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We saw the brawl between the Dodgers and Padres last night . Here's Don Mattingly's post-game reaction:
Here's Zack Greinke's reaction:
Here's Carlos Quentin's reaction:
Carlos Quentin's Plate Coverage. Normally when we talk about plate coverage we talk about how much of the plate the batter can cover with his bat. With Quentin we talk about how much of the plate he covers with his body.
Fangraphs plotted where Quentin has been hit by a pitch with respect to the strike zone since 2008 . Sure there are quite a few pitches inside, but a lot of them are in places that won't hit other batters.
Why Now?. Quentin has been hit by a pitch 116 times in his career. He has now been hit three times by Zack Greinke. He has also been hit three times by Jon Lester and Eric Bedard. Nick Blackburn has even hit him four times! To my knowledge, Quentin has not gone after Lester, Bedard or Blackburn. He also probably has never gone after Justin Verlander and John Lackey who have both hit him twice. So why now against Greinke?
Surgery. Greinke will have surgery to repair his fractured left collarbone and is expected to be out for eight weeks. That is quite a blow to the Dodgers who gave him a $147 million contract. He was looking like he was going to earn every dollar of the contract based on the two games pitched.
Greinke's Back. A lot has been made of Greinke and his social anxiety disorder. He does look very uncomfortable when talking to the media. Some folks interpret his aloofness to being alienating of his fellow teammates. Last night showed that is further from the truth.
When Padres backup catcher John Baker started laughing at Greinke's injury, Jerry Hairston, Jr. ran over towards the Padres dugout to get in his two-cents worth. If Hairston didn't like Greinke, no way does he do that. If Matt Kemp doesn't like Greinke, no way does he confront Quentin after the game.
Sure Greinke doesn't like talking to us, but his teammates like him and has his back. No one can say otherwise.
Punishment. Quentin will get an eight-game suspension while Hairston will get one game. Both are appealing their suspensions, and there probably won't be a hearing before Monday. That means there's a good chance Quentin will be standing on the left field grass when the Dodgers celebrate the anniversary of Jackie Robinson's MLB debut.
Greinke and Kemp were only fined since they were ejected. No word yet on dollar figures.
It's looking like Monday is going to be a good day. While the umpires will warn both teams before they take the field, I don't think the folks sitting in left field will be warned. Apparently tickets are still available for the game.
