A fired-up Don Mattingly wants to move on from latest Acuna debacle. His parting thoughts
To put it simply, Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly was fired up Wednesday morning. Tensions were high early in the Marlins’ 9-5 loss to the Atlanta Braves to open the best-of-5 National League Division Series after Sandy Alcantara hit Ronald Acuna Jr. with a pitch in the third inning.
Both sides afterward acknowledged that they did not believe the hit by pitch was intentional, but emotions still ran high, as they have each time it has happened over the past two-plus years. Starting with an Aug. 15, 2018, first-inning plunking by Jose Urena that caused benches to clear at SunTrust Park, Acuna has been hit by Marlins pitchers five times (twice by Urena, once each by Javy Guerra, Elieser Hernandez and Alcantara).
“I guarantee you the kid wasn’t trying to hit him,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said, “but in that situation, I think if you’re going to go in, you’ve gotta make sure if you go in, you don’t hit him. It comes to a point where you keep dinging that kid that the middle of the plate is being taken away. It’s just happening too much to that boy.”
Something to note, however: In that same time span, Braves pitchers have hit the Marlins’ Brian Anderson six times and Miguel Rojas five times, the latest coming in the eighth inning Tuesday. Rojas also dealt with Acuna sliding with his spikes high into second base on a seventh-inning ground ball.
Mattingly knew the topic would be brought up again. It was discussed on social media and TV after the game. He just wants to move on and focus on playing baseball.
But he gave a few parting thoughts on the topic.
So with that, we will just let Mattingly speak for himself. His full response:
“Here’s really the reality of it. I know everybody likes talking about it. Every time I turned on any kind of show yesterday that’s the only thing they showed. This guy’s hard to get out, right? So you’ve got to use both sides of the plate If it’s a 96 mile-an-hour fastball on the outside corner, it’s out of the ballpark. He hits that a ton. That shows you that you can’t just let him hang out over. So we’re trying to get him out, No. 1, right? We don’t want to put him on base. Their best hitters coming up next in Freddie [Freeman]. And [Marcell] Ozuna is having a tremendous year. We’re trying to get this guy out so that that’s the reality of it. The other reality, in the same timeframe that he’s been hit I think five times, Brian Anderson has been hit six. He hasn’t said a word about it. He doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Miggy’s been been hit five. So, just the reality of it, you’re trying to get people out. I don’t think the Braves are throwing at Andy. I think they’re trying to get him out. They’re trying to be able to use the ball inside so he can’t cover balls out over the plate, right? It’s the same stuff in baseball that’s happened forever. So the reality of it is we’re trying to get guys out and simple as that. I think either social or, you know, the talk shows or “SportsCenter,” whoever. That’s just good TV. So, we get past all that. We’ve got to try to win a game. Keep it simple, we’re gonna try and get this guy out. Simple as that.”
Mattingly wasn’t done there.
“That’s still kind of the drama of it all,” the manager continued. “I don’t think it’s can be any more emotional. Guys are wanting to win. We’re both fighting. Both teams are fighting to win. And there’s nothing, I don’t feel like there’s anything that needs to be said to our club. We’ve got to go try to win a game. Don’t worry about any of that other stuff. I mean, come on. We’ll do the same thing today. That game is over. We’ve got to go get outs. We have to score runs. You’ve got to make pitches. Execute. Move runners. Score runners. The simplicity of this is really the same thing we’ve done all year long. Get ready to play today. We’ll lay it all out there. And we’ll just live with whatever we have to live with.”
When asked about Acuna’s seventh-inning slide into second base, Mattingly said “I think you call that dirty.”
“I think everything’s good with the slide until he throws a spike above the knee,” Mattingly said. “I think in today’s game, that’s something that just probably everybody complains about. Ten years ago, 15 years ago nobody says a word about it.”
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