Baseball Chat

[Linchuck]

Santana fires back at Youkilis
Friday night, Kevin Youkilis got hit by a pitch from the hand of Mets' ace Johan Santana. After he was beaned, he stood in the box staring Santana down, and the incident nearly escalated into a brawl. There were two outs, nobody on base, and the count was 2-2. In fact, Youkilis had fouled off the previous two-strike pitch. Basically, there was no way the pitch was thrown intentionally.
As if I didn't already make myself clear, I couldn't agree more. Santana tried to come inside on a two-strike count, and he missed. He has nothing to gain by putting a runner on base for Jason Bay with a one-run lead (it was 4-3 at the time), especially since he'd already struck Youkilis out twice in the game.

To be fair, Youk has admitted he knew Johan wasn't throwing at him intentionally. He claims he was joking around, though it didn't really appear to be a joking matter at the time. It's entirely possible he's trying to save face after the game because he knows he overreacted when in the heat of the moment. He even went as far as to say Santana takes the game far too seriously.
"Everyone always told me in my career you shouldn't be so serious. Enjoy the game and joke around. When I do do it, I change my ways and joke around a little bit, I guess it's the wrong thing. So what are you gonna do? You win some, you lose some."
I'm all for having fun on the field, but it doesn't seem like taking a heater to the ribcage or elbow (as was the case with Youkilis) is especially fun -- so I can see why Santana apparently misconstrued what Youkilis was trying to do. It does appear from some replays Youk wasn't overly angry. Generally speaking, though, the player getting hit with the pitch and staring down the pitcher is usually the one who is taking things a bit too seriously. Thus, it's easy to see why Santana jumped to the conclusion he did.


http://blogs.nypost.com/sports/mets/archives/2009/05/santana_fires_b.html