Marlins’ Pablo Lopez and Don Mattingly ejected after Ronald Acuna Jr. hit by pitch
Pablo Lopez was trying to get ahead in the count. The 91.6 mph sinker he threw to open the bottom of the first inning on Friday night was supposed to be up and in, similar to how he threw to Ronald Acuna Jr. the last time the he started for the Miami Marlins faced the Atlanta Braves.
The pitch ran farther in than Lopez wanted and it didn’t sink the way it should. It plunked Acuna in the left elbow.
Here we go again. Acuna hit by a Marlins pitcher. The saga continues.
Lopez became the latest Marlins pitcher involved in what seems like a never-ending affair.
The right-handed pitcher, along with manager Don Mattingly and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr., were ejected moments later after the umpire crew huddled together down the first-base line but only after Braves manager Brian Snitker made his way out of the dugout to make his case that he thought the hit by pitch was intentional.
Crew chief and second base umpire Dan Iassogna made that call. The Marlins, to say the least, were not happy.
“I was really disappointed with the way it got handled,” Mattingly said after the 1-0 loss, the lone run coming when Acuna scored on a sacrifice fly in that first inning. “Really disappointed in the umpiring crew.”
The sinker for Mattingly: Iassogna telling him that “the history and it always happens and it’s always Acuna” played a factor in the decision.
Now, some background: Acuna getting hit by Marlins pitchers is a sore spot for the Braves, dating back bating to that Aug. 15, 2018, game when Jose Urena plunked the budding superstar. Both benches cleared that day. Snitker had to be restrained as he tried to get to Urena, who now pitches for the Detroit Tigers.
“That’s over. ‘18’s over,” Mattingly said. “For Dan to tell me, this is a history. There’s been history in the past from a guy who’s not even with us anymore. To throw Pablo Lopez out of the game on the first pitch, basically Dan got bullied into it. When it happened, nobody said anything. They didn’t come out and start this right away. ... It got mishandled.”
The first-inning plunk on Friday marked the sixth time a Marlins pitcher hit Acuna over 254 plate appearances, including the postseason. That’s once every 42.3 plate appearances on average. The Red Sox have hit Acuna the second most — three times in 59 plate appearances (or about once every 20 plate appearances).
Acuna has been hit 26 times in 388 career regular-season games and two more times in 21 postseason games.
“We’re trying to get the guy out, and we’ve had trouble getting him out, that’s for sure,” Mattingly said of Acuna, who entered Friday with a career .330 batting average and 20 home runs in 51 games against the Marlins. “We’re trying to get him out. We don’t want to hurt him. We don’t want to hit him. We’re trying to get him out. Simple as that.”
‘We felt it was intentional’
So what went into the decision to eject Lopez?
“There’s numerous things that go into it,” Iassogna said after the game, also noting the teams were not given formal warnings of any nature before or during the game. “Specifically, what type of pitch it is, where the pitch was, where it hit him. Those were our two main factors. You know it was a fastball. It was thrown directly at Acuna. And we felt it was intentional.”
Iassogna said by making the ejection in the first inning, it avoided a potential “beanball war” between the teams.
“One of the other things that we’re tasked to do is to keep control of the game,” Iassogna said. “And we felt, and I felt, that by ejecting the pitcher rather than putting a warning out, that would absolutely stop any retaliation.”
Would the situation have been any different if it was any player other than Acuna in the batter’s box?
“It was Acuna. It happened early, but it was Acuna,” Iassogna said, “and, you know, we handled the situation that was presented to us tonight.”
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‘I didn’t know how to react’
Lopez simply called the ejection “pretty confusing.”
“You could tell by how Donnie and Mel came out of the dugout. They were pretty shocked by it, too,” Lopez said. “It was just, I don’t know. Like I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know what to do. It just caught me by surprise. It stings.”
Marlins shortstop Miguel Rojas, the team’s de-facto captain who has been hit by Braves pitchers five times in time since Acuna made his MLB debut (Miami third baseman Brian Anderson has also been hit six times by Braves pitchers in that span), said he was disappointed at the umpire’s decision.
“There’s different ways you can take care of business,” Rojas said, “not just going out there and trying to bully the umpires and the other team because one of your best players is being hit by a pitch.”
After the hit by pitch, Acuna stood in the batter’s box for about 10 seconds. Acuna told reporters afterward he wasn’t sure if the Marlins were trying to hit him again or not.
“I don’t know, to be honest, just because of how many times it’s happened,” Acuña said through a translator. “Whether it was or whether it wasn’t doesn’t matter to me. My primary purpose and focus is that the team won.”
Acuna said he didn’t exchange words with Lopez walking up the first-base line.
“Every time I see him in the walkways or whatever, we always say hello and give each other a hug,” Acuna said. “We always exchange pleasantries, and I think he’s a good guy.”
Snitker came out of the home team dugout to argue that the hit-by-pitch was intentional. The umpires huddled together on the first-base line after that and ultimately decided to eject Lopez.
At that point, a slew of Marlins players and coaches came to Lopez’s defense. Rojas and first baseman Jesus Aguilar were among the players who tried to plead their case. Mattingly and Stottlemyre emerged from the dugout to defend Lopez as well.
Mattingly and Stottlemyre’s ejections followed, but Mattingly stayed on the field for a few more minutes and gave the umpiring crew an earful before he, his pitcher and his pitching coach left the field.
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How the game unfolded from there
Ross Detwiler took over on the mound after Lopez’s ejection and a 12-minute, 15-second delay. Acuna scored on an Ozzie Albies sacrifice fly after moving to third base on a Freddie Freeman single.
Detwiler held the Braves scoreless from there for three innings. Anthony Bender struck out all six batters he faced in the fourth and fifth innings. Richard Bleier threw a scoreless sixth inning. Anthony Bass threw a scoreless seventh inning. Dylan Floro threw a scoreless eighth inning.
But the offense failed to score a run. Miami (34-46) had five hits and drew seven walks while only managing to get five runners into scoring position.
Garrett Cooper made it to third base in the fourth inning after drawing a leadoff walk and advancing on an Adam Duvall groundout and Aguilar single. Rojas hit into a double play to end the threat.
Cooper again got into scoring position in the sixth with a two-out single followed by a Duvall walk. Aguilar hit a flyball to center field to end that inning.
In the seventh, Rojas reached on a leadoff walk and moved to second on a balk with two outs. Jesus Sanchez hit an infield single to the left side, but Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson threw out Rojas, whose foot came off the bag at third base.
And in the ninth, Miami loaded the bases with one out on an Aguilar walk (Magneuris Sierra pinch-ran), Rojas single and Jorge Alfaro walk. Jon Berti popped out. Sandy Leon, pinch-hitting for the pitcher’s spot, hit a fly ball to left field to end the game.
Meanwhile, Lopez’s final line for his 17th start of the season: One batter faced, one run allowed, one pitch.
Acuna went 0 for 3 in his final three at-bats.
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 7:48 PM.
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