I'm still furious at the ending of the game last night. Edwin Diaz buzzed a pitch at Wladmir (WBC home run leader) Balentien's head in the top of the 10th inning after barking at him the whole at bat. The Netherlands team was pretty pissed off and came out on the field. The camera captured Javier Baez taunting the Oranje bench.
We've seen this shit before done to Bautista and Donaldson. We know how we've felt about it. But because Puerto Rico is considered the cool kids of the tournament, I'm supposed to appreciate Baez's joy when they won in the bottom of the next inning. (Ask Wolf how he feels about the tournament rules that kicked in at the 11th.) Somehow they're supposed to get a pass.
"It wasn't intentional!", twitter cries. "Why would they want to put someone on base?" Well, for starters, he had been getting on base all night. Diaz barking at Balentien certainly showed intent beyond a pitcher going about his business. How better way to show you're a badass than to try and scare Coco? I don't believe he intended to actually hit him but I fully believe he deliberately threw it there to rattle Balentien. It didn't show the signs of a pitch getting away from a pitcher.
And in the aftermath, Yadier Molina was the only player that appeared concerned for Balentien (probably to stop him from going after his pitcher). The rest of the team just brushed it off. And that's not cool. We don't give the shitbirds/Rangers/KC a pass for that. I also got the argument that it's different because there's bad blood between the Jays and those teams and this was the first time these two teams have met. This is where I remind you that there wasn't always bad blood between the Jays and other teams. It took one incident in one high-stakes game to start that ball rolling. That's what happened tonight.
Fuck Puerto Rico. Hope they lose the final in the most painful way possible.
