The New Beanball Ethos.

When a plunk is not just a plunk

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The Phillies and Rays low-key got into it Tuesday night, by which I mean there was some milling about the pitcher’s mound, a few f-bombs dropped, and some collegial resisting of each other by the shoulders after dugouts and bullpens emptied. Philly’s Bryce Harper almost did a hold-me-back move, but he lost his zeal on his way to the mound when he realized that the pitcher wasn’t even going to turn around and face him.

The catalyst of all this was a thrown ball. Tampa’s Edwin Uceta had been getting the unholy crust blasted out of him by Philadelphia’s talented offense, and the pitcher finally snapped and loosed a 96 mile an hour fastball right at the hip of the Phillies’ Nick Castellanos. Castellanos got angry, threw down his bat and thrust his arms out to his sides in a “you want some?” manner. Commence shuffling of cleats.

Now, I want to stop here, because normally this is when we all chuckle and say, “Yeah. Pitchers.” But the conversation around beanballs and what they’re used for has changed significantly recently, and it’s worth a closer look.

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To begin with: Yes.

I know what you’re thinking. Yes, is the answer. Yes, Bob Gibson used to throw at people’s heads if he didn’t like the way they stood in the batter’s box, or if they’d previously hit a ball well, or (insert any reason whatsoever here). Gibson was like that. In his final game in 1975, he surrendered a grand slam to light-hitting Pete LaCock, and — the story goes — years later, at an old timer’s game, Gibson beaned LaCock in belated retaliation.

So let’s all agree that there was a time when intentionally hitting somebody with a pitch was, if not more accepted among batters, certainly more common. If you’re of a certain age, you grew up understanding that the really good pitchers seemed to have no moral compunction about buzzing the tower, as they said back then. (“Buzzing the tower” was a weirdly euphemistic way of saying “throwing a baseball at someone’s brain.”)

Of course, in those days the pitcher also batted for himself, as the DH did not arrive until 1973, and then only in the American League. So if someone really had a beef with Gibson or Don Drysdale or Nolan Ryan for plunking guys, this could occasionally be dealt with in real time. In years to come, if it was Randy Johnson or Roger Clemens or Pedro Martinez or Greg Maddux or whomever, one of the offending pitcher’s own teammates would usually get beaned in retaliation, and the game would continue with enthusiasm.

But as both time and the industry have progressed, the notion of throwing at batters has become more fraught. It was at first a subtle trend shift away from beanings, but lately it has taken on more urgency.

The reason: speed.

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Nick Castellanos was heated. He was the victim of a fastball to the hip that easily could have caught his ribs, and it happened because the batters before him had gone double, single, homer, double against Uceta, who came into the game with a microscopic 0.79 earned run average but quickly blew the game for the Rays.

"I had an overwhelming sense that I was about to get drilled," Castellanos said. "We all just got a sense of what it was -- he was just pissed off that he got hit around, and his ERA shot through the roof. That's like my 2-year-old throwing a fit because I took away his dessert before he was finished."

Uceta originally tried to say he lost control of a changeup, but the Statcast doesn’t lie. It was a 96 mph sinker that struck Castellanos.

And that’s the point: Ninety-six. Edwin Uceta was the fourth pitcher for the Rays, entering in the eighth inning, and he was just blowing gas.

Never before in the history of the sport have so many pitchers thrown so hard so late into games, and with such movement, and with such capacity to do serious damage if they misfire or intentionally strike a hitter. The epidemic of blowtorch, max-effort pitchers is one thing, but when applied to the good old Hit By Pitch, it becomes problematic very quickly.

"That's not the game that we play, man. It shouldn’t be," Bryce Harper said. "Guys throw too hard nowadays. The whole thing just really fired me up, really upset me. Just not something you should accept as Major League Baseball."

Whatever else you want to say about the situation, Harper’s words mark a sea change. There was a long time — a long, long time — in which a pitcher beaning a player, even on purpose, was essentially understood as part of the deal. Not anymore.

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It’s unclear whether MLB can do much about this. Uceta was ejected in the moment, and he received a three-game suspension Wednesday (it was reduced to two games upon appeal). But it may not be until a pitcher deliberately firing at a batter causes, say, a season-changing injury to a superstar that the industry’s overlords are prompted to respond more severely.

On some levels, that’s baseball. But there is a reason that the NFL’s rules committee goes to insane lengths to protect the quarterback: Fans want to see the stars play the game.

No knock on Nick Castellanos, but if it had been Harper who was struck, and if that HBP had broken a bone or something, and if the whole incident was the product of an angry pitcher just taking out his frustration on someone — that’s a different conversation. The old days are over. Time for a new understanding of the dynamics of this singularly idiotic tradition.