“I mean, we know when he’s at the plate — when he’s at the plate — Jordan!”
That’s how it started. If you’ve ever wondered how a standard head coach-referee interaction works, now you know. When the game started, the head coach shouted the referee’s name loudly and waved his arms. In the bottom of the fourth inning, as John Schneider was being interviewed in an in-game attempt to lead the Blue Jays to victory in Game 7 of the World Series, Justin Wrobleski started off Andres Jimenez with a high, tight fastball. It looked and sounded like the ball might have hit Jimenez’s elbow, so in the middle of criticizing home plate umpire Jordan Baker for halting play while Shohei Ohtani switched from batter mode to pitcher mode, Schneider signaled to Baker that he wanted to pause play for a moment to review video.
The video room told the Blue Jays not to challenge. The ball missed Jimenez. One and one later, Wrobleski lost control of his fastball again, and Schneider again asked Baker to call a timeout. The manager was visibly frustrated, crossing his arms and sticking his chin out, waiting for word from the replay room. The ball was higher than inside and despite Jimenez’s best efforts, it missed him again. He attempted the classic move of winning a hit by letting his elbow drift at the plate while turning toward the catcher and (ostensibly) away from the field. Then, realizing he was inches away from the ball, he extended his arm without any pretense. Well, he wasn’t pulling any tricks, it was just naivety. The ball is slightly higher than his arm, so he tries to close the distance by first lifting his shoulder, then his elbow, then his wrist, and finally his fingers. He pops and locks deftly, and when that’s not high enough, he jumps inches into the air. If he touches the ball this way, Baker will be forced to keep him at the plate, just like James Hoye did when Aledmys Díaz leaned inside in Game 1 of the 2022 World Series. Jimenez frowned at the lounge, and Schneider frowned too.
You know what happened next. Wrobleski misses again and this time Jimenez doesn’t need to try to get hit. Pitch came looking for him and grabbed his padded right hand. He’s had enough. He yelled, dropped his bat, and looked toward the mound. “What is [EXPLETIVE DELETED]man? ’ he asked Wrobleski. ‘That’s [EXPLETIVE DELETED]”. Baker jumped out from behind the plate and tried to lead the injured side to first base. “It’s okay,” the umpire whispered. Jimenez still wanted answers. “What’s the matter? [EXPLETIVE DELETED]? “He asked again.
Wrobleski tried to soothe Jimenez’s ruffled feathers and bruised hands in the best way he knew how. “[EXPLETIVE DELETED] you, mom[EXPLETIVE DELETED],” he replied, before asking his own question.” [EXPLETIVE DELETED] What are you talking about? I don’t mean to hit you. ”
I should admit, I don’t like it when the bench is empty. I don’t like violence. I’d love to see all of this legislated into the game. But once the benches were cleared, I could still appreciate the silliness of the thing, those posturing, expletive-laden bromides, the substitutes tiptoeing down the concrete stairs in cleats and trotting reluctantly toward the infield.
One of my favorite parts of my job is describing how a manager or pitching coach goes out on the field to visit the mound. They were mostly burly, aching ex-athletes who were busy thinking about several important ideas at once, often deliberately stalling to give the bench a few extra seconds to warm up. the word Walk Action is rarely captured. They stroll. They roll. They labor. They lift themselves. They dawdle.
Schneider isn’t dilly-dallying. The former catcher broke into a high-speed jog, getting to the front of Toronto’s phalanx with enough speed to make you wonder how he only stole three bases in six seasons in the minor leagues. At 6-foot-3, Schneider is one of the biggest players on the court, and in one shocking moment he seemed ready to step into the fray and bang some heads together. Instead, he made a beeline for the nearest umpire, John Tumpane, who used his conflict-resolution skills on the outside of the first-base line. Schneider’s face was full of questions. “this [EXPLETIVE DELETED]man? he asked as soon as he was within earshot.[INDECIPHERABLE] [EXPLETIVE DELETED]? [BLASPHEMY DELETED]”. Sadly, Tumpan’s reply was lost in the shuffle.
After the game, reporters asked Wrobleski many times about the game. Each time, he answered with a wry smile. In the locker room after the game, he said, “He was trying to get hit by a pitch before, and then he got hit, and then he talked to me and I said, ‘Come see me,’ but he didn’t. So it’s part of the game anyway.” As World Series celebrations spilled onto the field, he explained, “There’s no point in hitting him, especially because he’s not very good against lefties and not very good against speed. So it was weird and we didn’t want to hit him there. And then when he got the ball It was kind of weird to take the ball off the bat. And then I hit him and he started chirping at me, and that’s it. But at the same time, I didn’t want to hit him.” For one moment, I’m not going to let you talk to me, try to belittle me, yell at me, curse at me, but stay calm. Because that’s not me. I’m not going to try to hit you, but if you’re going to talk to me, I’m going to talk back to you.”
Wrobleski advances three main arguments. First of all, he didn’t want to fight Jimenez. This seems obvious, although him sandwiching this particular argument with sarcasm doesn’t help his case.
Second, Jimenez started the drama by yelling at him. This is a bit hard to swallow. Wrobleski chose a very convenient starting point for this particular sample because it intentionally left out the part where he intentionally or unintentionally threw a bunch of 95 mph fastballs at the man’s head. Some would argue that if you throw three pitches directly into the batter’s hands in one at-bat, whether intentional or not, you probably shouldn’t throw any more pitches. You will most likely hurt someone. You may remember watching Daniel Bader pitch against Venezuela during the 2023 World Baseball Classic. Bud clearly had no idea where the ball was going and he did it when we were all worried he was going to hurt someone. He broke Jose Altuve’s thumb, requiring surgery that cost the second baseman nearly three months. Jimenez may be entitled to at least some level of venting.
Wrobleski’s third argument was that Jimenez lost his right to object to the placement of all three balls because he attempted to be hit by the second ball. It’s hard to take this argument seriously. Jimenez did try to let the second ball hit him. But that certainly doesn’t mean he has to enjoy the constant buzzing of his tower. This argument essentially boils down to: “How dare you make lemonade out of the lemons I throw at your head?”
Jimenez told reporters: “I’m not happy [about] What did I do. But the data shows that it may be more reasonable to argue with these sales pitches than we realized at the time, because they were truly outstanding. The average speed of these three balls was 95.7 mph, 1.2 feet from the inside of this board, and a height of 4.4 feet, so I searched in Statcast for a velocity of at least 95 mph, an inside of at least 0.9 feet from this board, and a height of at least 3.9 ft. fastball. Do you want to know how many times a pitcher like Wrobleski has thrown three pitches in one home plate appearance? Twice! That’s 0.001 percent of the time during the regular season — and not just to one player. was [EXPLETIVE DELETED].
The pitcher in one of those two games was Wrobleski’s teammate Michael Kopech. Do you know how Kopech handled this situation? After approaching Beanball for the third time, he apologized, possibly with words but certainly with gestures. Here he is, understandably so, comforting Elias Diaz with open arms.
This is definitely downgraded body language. Now compare that to Wrobleski’s demo after he actually hit Jimenez. This screenshot comes before Jimenez has said a word, so keep in mind that by Wrobleski’s count, the event hasn’t technically started yet.
I’m not trying to turn Wrobleski into a villain. (Though I should probably point out that he did tell reporters the night before the game, “I love the atmosphere here, playing here, so to speak, being a villain here.”) Regardless, when a team of MLB.com reporters broke down the craziest play of Game 7, the incident ranked only fifth. Scoring one of the most important games and series in recent memory amounts to a little mischief on a curve.
