On June 9, 2005, the Rangers were playing the Phillies and Mark Teixeira of the Rangers hit two home runs off Phillies pitcher, Vicente Padilla; one in the first inning and one in the third. In the fifth inning, Teixeira again came up to bat and was promptly drilled by a pitch from Padilla. Replays show that the pitch was not just "inside". No, the pitch was thrown directly at Teixeira as Padilla blatantly and without apology drilled him.
In 2006 and 2007, Teixeira and Padilla were teammates with the Rangers and Teixeira said that during this time, he had a little talk with Padilla about his tendency to hit batters who had just hit a home run off of him.
He went on to say "There's really no reason for it in baseball. You know, if you can't get a guy out, don't hit him. You know, if you don't want to pitch to a guy, then, you know, put four fingers out there and walk him. And, unfortunately, when I was a teammate, it happened a lot where he would hit guys, and the 3-4 hitters, those are the guys that got hit for retaliation, and I got hit plenty of times."
While Teixeira and Padilla may have had a talk, it does not appear that Padilla ever really "reformed". Yesterday in the game between the Yankees and the Rangers, Teixeira, now with the Yankees faced Padilla twice and Padilla hit him twice. As in 2005, replays show that Padilla was not just "pitching inside"; it was more like "pitching directly at the batter."
Ok, it seems as if Mr. Padilla has a little "I will hit you if you hit a home run off of me" thing going on which I guess is some kind of deterrent "homer-avoidance" strategy of his. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
I do note that Padilla has been in major leagues since 1999 and has given up 148 home runs in his career which really is a lot as he has not thrown that all many innings so this deterrent "homer-avoidance" strategy does not really seem to be working well for him. I also note that Padilla has hit only 98 batters in his career so simple arithmetic will tell you that there are still some players out there that Padilla owes some retribution to.
How does he keep all of these vendettas straight?
Is there statute of limitations at play here when retribution no longer applies? Do batters still owe him from 1999?
If both Padilla and the offending batter find themselves facing each other in the minor leagues, is it still "game on"?
If Padilla gets hit with a batted ball, is that batter now on the list?
Is it a "one for one" thing or is there a formula at play here? Teixeira got hit three times but only hit two home runs.
Is there any way for a batter to pay off a debt short of getting hit?
Does a retired player who has not yet paid his debt need to be concerned off of the diamond?
Vicente, how does this work?
5 comments:
Perhaps Padilla is getting an "insurance" hit on that inside pitch. It might be a while before the two players face each other again.
And if Teixeira gets a HR off of him the next time they do meet in his first at bat, and if Padilla gets pulled from the game, things are even.
This behavior might have been learned. In his first three seasons, Padilla only hit one batter. But then, after spending some time with Brandon Duckworth on the Phillies he seemed to have picked up this bad habit.
Padilla is tied for 64th on the career Hit By Pitch list. 17 of the pitchers ahead of him are in the Hall of Fame. At this rate he'll easily pick up another 10 this season, which will time him with Gaylord Perry, at 47th spot.
Another three years at 12 each year will place him at 144 or 15th on the list (assuming that the other active pitchers on that don't add to their stats).
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
apparently the Rangers do not forget either...
they just put Padilla on outright waivers.
Mark, I also see that he had only 2 hit batsmen in his first five years but then things really changed. I guess if you have only marginal stuff (though I do see that he was an All Star in 2002), you may as well add "fear" to your repetoire. That said,unless Bob Gibson or Don Drysdale is on the mound, I don't think fear is a factor with most hitters. As a slight tangent, I was at a Tigers game a few years ago against the Royals where Duckworth was pitching. He had a nasty curve and I thought if he could develop even one more decent complementary pitch, he could be a quality pitcher but apparently it wasn't to be.
Brian, I see Padilla has an ERA in the high 5's 2 of the last 3 years and he just might be done. If the Rangers release you with their pitching staff well..........
Mr. Contrarian,
A clarification is in order for both of our comments. Padilla had two hit batsmen in his first three seasons.
I use the wonderful baseball-reference.com. The rows confuse me when a player switches teams during a season.
But during those three seasons he had three wild pitches. He apparently had some control.
I think that one should toss out his first season, as he only faced 19 batters in 5 games over 2.2 innings. He did post a 16.88 ERA for that rookie season.
But, I do give him credit. I can't be easy to make it to the major leagues.
But it is cheap sportsmanship and does more to harm the game than to promote it.
Mark, you are right, I was using baseball-reference as well and just looked at the lines not appreciating that they were broken down by teams and more than one team in a season.
I can recall 4 or 5 years back being a little interested in him from a fantasy baseball perspective so he had some decent years.
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