[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

First of all, it was Orioles1954 who said "Scherzer threw the ball inside and missed the zone by about a foot.", so I was not responding to you.
Second, it doesn't matter where he was trying to throw it, and of course I recognize it was a bad pitch as did everyone else. That is irrelevant to whether the rule applies and whether Tabata deliberately tried to get hit. Are you suggesting that the rule should apply if Scherzer tried to throw a brushback pitch intentionally and just missed "his spot" by an inch or two, but since he threw a slower breaking pitch that didn't break and missed his target by a lot the rule somehow does not apply? That makes little sense.

Again, hats off to Scherzer all around. He probably does not have a right to rely on that rule being enforced, especially as it is a judgment call, but it would have been nice to see it and would not have cheapened anything had it been enforced, IMO. Personally, I think it was bush league of Tabata. I'm confident if that would have been Drysdale or Gibson out there in the 60's, Tabata could count on getting plunked a time or four thereafter. Hell Pedro and Randy Johnson likely would do the same. Time will tell.

Not that I advocate drilling people, but one of the great moments I have seen came during yet another bad blood game between the Red Sox and Indians in the late 90s or early 2000s. In the home half of the eighth inning, after stuff had been accelerating the whole game including a mound charge or two, Nagy drilled one of the Sox batters. Pedro who probably would normally have come out of the game insisted he return to the mound for the ninth. The umpire went out to warn him, but everyone in the ballpark knew he was going to drill the first batter which he proceeded to do with the first pitch. And not with a fluff pitch either, with a hard fastball to the backside. He was completely unapologetic afterwards.