The Atlanta Braves have been ravaged by injuries in 2024, perhaps more so than any other Major League Baseball team. They don't need any more casualties.
With Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley, Spencer Strider, and Ozzie Albies representing a star-studded injured list, the Braves are doing well to stay in playoff position. But after an injury scare Tuesday night, tensions ran high in the Atlanta clubhouse.
In the seventh inning of the Braves' 3-0 win, second baseman Whit Merrifield took a 95-mile-per-hour fastball to the back of the head from Colorado Rockies pitcher Jeff Criswell. He appeared angry about it in the moment, but he was far angrier after the game.
The Braves lost star third baseman Austin Riley to a hand fracture on an up-and-in fastball, and very nearly had a similar fate with both Michael Harris II and Travis d'Arnaud. Merrifield's own brush with danger, it appears, was the final straw.
After the game, Merrifield sounded off not only on Criswell, but the state of pitching in Major League Baseball as a whole.
“We lost Riley, we almost lost Mike, we almost lost d’Arnaud in a span of two or three weeks,” Merrifield said, per David O'Brien of The Athletic. “The way pitchers are throwing now, there’s no regard for throwing up and in. The guys are throwing as hard as they can, they don’t care where the ball goes. And it’s just … it’s bulls—-.”
Merrifield's also spoke out against the crackdown on "retaliation" in Major League Baseball, forcing his teammates to refrain from throwing at any Rockies batters in return for the beanball.
“No repercussion on his part, and I mean, without being overly dramatic, that was my life on the line right there,” Merrifield said. “So, I’m sick of it, it’s happening way too much."
Merrifield also pointed to scary injuries to Mookie Betts, Justin Turner, and Taylor Ward on high and tight pitches as other examples of pitchers' control problems wreaking havoc in the past two seasons.
It's hard to say exactly what can and should be done about big-league pitchers' increased wildness. The emphasis in pitching across all levels the past few years has been on velocity, and while chasing numbers on the radar gone, sometimes control goes by the wayside.
But Merrifield knows people are listening when a respected veteran speaks up in such a public forum. The league office will hear him loud and clear, but whether any changes occur is a question for a later date.
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