Wrapping up the 2022 Season, Part One
November 11, 2022
Cheaters never prosper, unless they get away with it. Daniel Tosh
The 2022 Baseball World Champion Houston Astros?
The 2022 Major League Baseball season is now history. On November 5th, the Houston Astros defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in the sixth game of the 2022 World Series. With this victory, the Astros won the best of seven series, 4 games to 2, to become the 2022 World Champions. There was some talk that the Astro’s 2022 triumph somehow redeemed the club for their tainted 2017 World Championship. Of course, during that 2017 season, the Astros had utilized modern technology to steal their opponent’s pitching signs and gain a completely illegal competitive edge. Ironically, in 2022, the Houston Astros won the sixth and deciding game with some old school style cheating. The leopard evidently couldn’t change its spots. The question is whether the 2022 Houston Astros championship was as ill-deserved as the 2017 title?
The Complaint
In the top of the sixth inning of that deciding sixth game, the Phillies scored their first (and only) run of the game when Kyle Schwarber rocketed a solo home run into the right field bleachers. In the bottom of the sixth inning the Astros answered with four runs of their own. Strangely, every run in the game was scored in this fateful sixth inning. When the game was over, the Astros were 4-1 victors and crowned as the 2022 World Champs. But it is undeniable that the Astro’s sixth inning began with some chicanery from their first hitter, Martin Maldonado. When the game was over, Maldonado did not even have the good sense to dissemble. He confirmed that he went to bat intending to cheat (It must be said that his candor was actually kind of refreshing in this age of hypocrisy). Maldonado went to the plate in the sixth inning absolutely determined to be hit by a pitch so he could be undeservedly be awarded first base. It is against the rules to actually try to be hit by the pitch. In fact, the rules stipulate that the batter has a duty to try to get out of the way. If the batter does not make an effort to dodge, the pitch is simply called a strike or ball. But, like many other things in the game, the decision to not award a hit by pitch [HBP] is completely left to the umpire’s discretion.
The Evidence
As Maldonado stepped into the batter’s box in the decisive sixth inning, Zack Wheeler, the Met’s starting pitcher, was still pitching and throwing well. He had blanked the Astros for the first five innings and his pitch count was low. He was actually slinging pretty filthy stuff. Maldonado, the ninth and final batter in a deep Houston line-up, is one of the worst hitting regulars in the Majors. He probably could have swung the bat with his eyes shut and not appreciably lowered his chances of getting a hit. Knowing his chances were slim, Maldonado got right on top of the plate, crowding it like a starving man at the dinner table. Maldonado was very obviously looking for a pitch to not accidentally hit his body. In one sense, this was admirable (like leaving your body to science after you die). Wheeler threw a pitch inside, possibly trying to move Maldonado off the plate. It plunked Maldonado right on his heavily padded elbow. Maldonado did actually move his elbow into his body. There were two ways to interpret this. One would be that he was trying to move his elbow out of the way. The other would be that he very deliberately shifted his padded elbow right into the path of the ball. For the record, I immediately thought that he had done it on purpose.
The Result
Home plate umpire Lance Barksdale signaled for Maldonado to go down to first base on the fraudulent HBP. The Phillies immediately appealed the HBP. Strangely, the television announcers informed their audience that the Phillies had no right to appeal. The announcers apparently thought that the Phillies were claiming that the pitch hit Maldonado’s bat. But, even by the naked eye, it was obvious that the pitch had hit his elbow. My assumption was that the Phillies had actually appealed whether the pitch was in the strike zone or not. Any HBP in the actual strike zone is simply a strike. The batter is rewarded for trying to cheat with the pain of being hit. In any case, the Phillies’ appeal was denied. The television slow motion replay showed Wheeler’s pitch running in towards Maldonado like it had a personal grudge against him. It also showed Maldonado pulling his elbow in towards his body and right into the path of the pitch. Barksdale, ignoring the fact that Maldonado had obviously come up to the plate intending to be hit, awarded this dishonest but smart strategy. It can certainly be argued that, from that moment on, the Houston Astros no longer deserved to win the game.
The Rebuttal
In Barksdale’s defense, it could also certainly be argued that Maldonado’s attempt to move his elbow into his body was proof that he made an effort not to by plunked by the pitch. But, of course, Maldonado simply admitted after the game that he was trying to get a HBP, by hook or by crook. It can also certainly be argued that the Phillies’ collapse after Maldonado illegally trotted down to first base was hardly the Astros’ fault. The next batter, Jose Altuve, hit into a fielder’s choice, wiping the much slower Maldonado off the bases. Then Jeremy Pena singled, putting Astros at first and third with one out (the slow Maldonado would have never made third on that play). Phillies’ manager Rob Thomson relieved the right-handed Wheeler and brought in his fire-balling lefty reliever Jose Alvarado to face Houston’s best slugger Yordan Alvarez. This was a very interesting move by Thomson. In the fourth game of the Series, with the score 0-0 but the bases loaded, the Phillies’ manager had also brought Alvarado in to face Alvarez. Alvarado then drilled Alvarez in the back with a 99 mph fastball before completely imploding and letting in all five runs in a 5-0 Houston victory. In game six, Alvarado would once again reward his manager’s faith with ashes. Yordan Alvarez hit a monstrous home run this time off Alvarado, 450 feet to dead center field. To blame the Houston Astros for Rob Thomson’s odd choice of reliever hardly seems fair.
In a Parallel Universe
In a perfect world, home plate umpire Lance Barksdale would have voided the HBP, called the pitch a ball or strike, and told Martin Maldonado ‘nice try’ but stop screwing around and get back in the batter’s box. If this had happened, there is no way of knowing how the rest of the game would have played out. Perhaps it would have made no difference. Maybe Pena would have singled with two outs and Alvarez would have homered anyways off of Alvarado. Or Wheeler would have been allowed to stay in with two outs to pitch to Alvarez and struck him out with the Phillies eventually winning 1-0 on the Schwarber sixth-inning blast. In some alternate reality, the Philadelphia Phillies are most surely the 2022 Baseball Champions after pounding the Houston Astros into submission in the seventh game. But, if wishes were kisses, everyone would have chapped lips. In the long run, does it really matter? That argument that the Houston Astros were a superior team to the Philadelphia Phillies is a very easy one to make. If these two teams spent the entire off-season replaying the Series, I have little doubt the Astros would win, legally, six or more times against the usually overmatched Phillies. But, by cheating, the Astros did not allow the Phillies their one slim chance of winning.
The Verdict
In the film Animal House, the University’s Dean announces that, because of the Animal House fraternity’s various gross infractions of school rules, they are to be placed on probation. When he is told that the fraternity is already on probation, he pauses and then announces that they are on “double secret probation.” In the very first game of the 2022 World Series, Aledmys Diaz of the Astros had, just like Maldonado in game six, deliberately let himself be hit by a pitch (Maldonado may have learned something from Aledmys’ HBP as Diaz made his intentions far too obvious). The home plate umpire Jim Hoye immediately voided the Diaz HBP* and correctly called it a strike. In game six, did Lance Barksdale, the home plate umpire remember game one at all? The Astros should have been on “double secret probation” at that point. All the benefit of the doubt should have gone to the Phillies. In a perfect universe, the Houston Astros should have only been given a HBP if their player had completely undressed himself trying to get out of the way. Barksdale should have correctly decided that Maldonado was fishing for the ball with his elbow (If Maldonado had wanted to actually get his elbow out of the way, he could have simply raised it up). But Barksdale did not. For this reason, I will always believe that the Houston Astros do not deserve to be 2022 World Champions, just like they do not deserve to be 2017 World Champions.
*Has there ever been another World Series that was as deeply affected by hit by pitches [HBP] as the 2022 World Series? The HBPs of Diaz in game one, Alvarez in game four, and Maldonado in game six, were all the turning points in each of these games. It could rightfully be called the HBP World Series.
NEXT:
Part two: Time travels a Dusty road.