Nick Castellanos has sincere apologies and respects the Rays manager.
Nick Castellanos was plunked earlier in the week, leading to a bench clearing that featured a lot of “hold me back,” but no actual fisticuffs. He told reporters after the Phillies sweep that Rays manager Kevin Cash apologized for Edwin Uceta’s actions:
“I have respect for Cash being honest and sticking up and there’s a right way to play the game and there’s a wrong way to play the game, and admitting that is all I could ask for and (we’re) moving forward.”
That’s good to hear. Everyone knew the pitch was aimed at Castellanos. Uceta said after the game he didn’t hit him on purpose, and threw a changeup, but when you look through the game data the pitch is logged as a 96 mile-an-hour sinker. Whoops! I accidentally lost control of my heater.
That’s the part about it that annoyed Bryce Harper, who thinks that guys throw too hard nowadays to justify hitting batters. Maybe in the good old days the retaliatory beaning was a little more palatable since dudes weren’t throwing 95+ with regularity, but with velocity being what it is now, the chances of injury are higher.
Of course, Castellanos homered the very next day, on 9/11. Nobody is surprised.
