Let's see. A pitcher makes only his second start after being out 915 days thanks to elbow trouble and a rehab setback or three. He faces 8 batters, surrenders 5 runs, and gets charged with 2 more, while getting only one out. Can you find the law that mandates the death penalty upon him and his family for such an outing as that at all, never mind after an injury-instigated three-year absence?
Neither can I.
But welcome back to Social Media Stupidity. The newest episode: "The Houston Bloodbath." Starring Lance McCullers, Jr., Astros pitcher, versus the Reds Saturday night. With a cast of thousands, from the dugouts to the bullpens to the Daikin Park seats. With the Reds drawing first-inning blood.
That's phrasing it politely, of course. What the Reds did to McCullers and company could be classified as human rights violations. Okay, I surrender, McCullers did open things with a leadoff walk (to TJ Friedl) and a followup plunk (upon Matt McLain). Second start since returning it might have been, but I'm pretty sure nobody really thinks McCullers premeditated what followed from there.
In fact, anyone who doesn't expect Reds star Elly De La Cruz to do damage when offered a blank check to commit it either doesn't watch baseball or believes in the tooth fairy, the Easter wabbit, and Donald Trump's economic acumen. Because on 1-1 the switch-hitting De La Cruz took McCullers the other way, into the Crawford Boxes, for a 3-run homer.
It's not that a pitcher can't wriggle his way out of a 3-0 hole in the first inning. Unfortunately, McCullers couldn't. After he got Gavin Lux to ground out to second, he walked Santiago Espinal and Spencer Steer back-to-back. Then he got ahead of Tyler Stephenson 0-1 before surrendering an RBI single floating into short right. Then he got ahead of Will Benson 0-1, likewise — and Benson slashed an RBI double down the right field line.
Astros manager Joe Espada hustled McCullers out of there before he could incur any further damage by himself. The bad news was that his relief, Logan VanWey, lost his way even worse than McCullers had.
He walked Connor Joe. He surrendered an RBI single to Friedl that also loaded the bases. He walked Benson home. Those 2 runs were charged to McCullers for having allowed those men on in the first place. Then VanWey really lost his own game's innocence. He got Cruz to ground out but that sent Joe home. He surrendered a 2-run single to Lux. Then he struck Espinal out swinging to end the opening massacre.
10-0 Reds before any Astro could check in at the plate.
Eight times since 1969 have the Astros let themselves get strafed for 10 runs or more in any inning, and the first since the Rangers tore eleven out of them in 2013. The Reds managed to hold on and win 13-9. You read it right. The Astros got one back in the first and then sent six men home in the third, making things 12-7. The Reds got the thirteenth run with a sixth-inning RBI single; the Astros got their ninth run in the ninth, but that was all.
And there was McCullers after the game, joining Espada in telling Houston and the world that the social media death threats after his first-inning flogging got out of hand enough that the Astros got the Houston Police Department and MLB security involved.
"I understand people are very passionate and people love the Astros and love sports," McCullers said, "but threatening to find my kids and murder them is a little bit tough to deal with."
Espada was so outraged for his pitcher that he banged a fist on the press conference table while he spoke. "I just left my office, and it's very unfortunate that there are people who are threatening his life and the life of his kids because of his performance," the manager said. "It's very unfortunate that we have to deal with this. After all he's done for this city, this team, the fact that we have to talk about that in my office, I got kids, too. It really drives me nuts. It's very sad. Very, very sad."
"Sad" is a too-polite way to phrase it. How about outrageous? How about irresponsible? How about displaying the mind and manner of three-year-olds?
Once upon a time, a different collection of Reds were on the far more wrong side of a May 1951 murder in Brooklyn. The Boys of Summer Dodgers dropped a 19-1 nuking upon those Reds . . . with 15 of those Dodger runs crossing the plate in the first inning. It was bad enough and long enough that Reds starting pitcher Ewell (The Whip) Blackwell was lifted after surrendering a mere three runs (including a 2-run bomb by Hall of Famer Duke Snider), showered, returned to the Reds' team hotel, watched on television in the hotel bar as his relief Bud Byerly was torn for four straight RBI singles . . . and saw Byerly join him at the hotel bar before the inning finally, mercifully ended.
I bet you can't guess what would happen to Blackwell or Byerly through today's social media if that game and that inning were played today. Come to think of it, today's Social Media Stupids might be so stupid they'd have threatened Snider, his family, and those of every Dodger who scored or sent runners home in that inning.
Four years ago, when the Guardians were still known as the Indians, relief pitcher Nick Wittgren surrendered four runs on his own in a third of an inning (an RBI single, a 3-run homer), and took to Xtwitter later that day to post, "Sadly, this is considered 'normal' in professional sports. It's happened to 90% of players I know and basically after every bad outing a player has. But there is nothing normal about threatening someone and their families lives."
The "normalcy" Wittgren found regrettable wasn't his bad outing but the threats he received against his family. (I will get you tonight and kill your family. I will shot your family and stab your necks. Well, nobody ever accused the Social Media Stupids of being perfect spellers.)
"I think bringing kids into the equation, threatening to find them or next time they see us in public, they're going to stab my kids to death," said McCullers, father of two young daughters, whose first outing back was 3.2 scoreless against the White Sox (yes, that could be called doing it the easy way), "it's tough to hear as a dad."
You don't have to be a dad to find those threats beyond outrage. You have only to be a decent human being.
Almost a decade ago, when the Dodgers honored Vin Scully with a Night in Dodger Stadium, Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax remembered one of the most telling sides of that sweet man without whose presence on earth baseball simply doesn't seem the same: Before the World Series, Vin would go to church and pray. Not for a win, but there would be only heroes in the World Series, no goats. He didn't want anybody's future to be tarnished with the fact that they lost the World Series for their team.
Be very afraid to ask what would happen, and what Scully would receive, if he were to do that today and even one of today's Social Media Stupids happened to be in the church where he did it. Be surprised not one whit, moreover, if you pass by the Scully home thus to find it guarded like a fortress including with tanks and overhead attack helicopters.
"Come on," Espada urged anxiously, and he could have been talking about Astro fans in particular or baseball fans more broadly, "we are better than that. We are better than that." That just might depend upon whom "we" happen to be.
Leave a Comment