Three balks in one at-bat? The historical context of Marlins pitcher Richard Bleier’s feat
.JPG "Miami Marlins relief pitcher Richard Bleier, right, argues with home plate umpire Ryan Blakney, center, after being ejected after the eighth inning of the team’s baseball game against the New York Mets on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022, in New York. The Marlins won 6-4. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)")
Richard Bleier was at a loss for words.
Never in his entire MLB career — seven seasons, 303 games, 295 1/3 innings — had the left-handed relief pitcher been called for a balk.
So clearly he was flabbergasted when he was called for not one, not two, but three balks in the eighth inning on Tuesday in the Miami Marlins’ 6-4 win over the New York Mets at Citi Field.
And it all came in the span of one at-bat, with Mets first baseman Pete Alonso at the plate with two outs for all of Bleier’s balking.
The balks resulted in Jeff McNeil rounding the bases and scoring after hitting an infield single the at-bat before.
“In the beginning, he said I didn’t come [to a stop], which I clearly disagreed with,” Bleier said after the game, according to MLB.com. “It’s the same move I’ve been doing my entire career. I have never been called for a balk ever. The first one, which I don’t think was a balk, I watched the video. After that, they were clearly not balks. Words cannot describe what just happened in that inning.”
MLB defines a balk as “when a pitcher makes an illegal motion on the mound that the umpire deems to be deceitful to the runner(s). As a result, any men on base are awarded the next base, and the pitch (if it was thrown in the first place) is waved off for a dead ball.” Since a balk is a judgment call by the umpire, it is not a reviewable action.
Emotions began to flare after the second called balk, with Bleier being held back by first baseman Lewin Diaz as he began voicing his displeasure to first base umpire John Tumpane. After the third balk, which drove in the run, tempers boiled over. Marlins manager Don Mattingly argued the decision and was ejected by home plate umpire Ryan Blakney.
Bleier proceeded to get Alonso to hit into an inning-ending groundout and then yelled at the umpires to express his displeasure, earning an ejection of his own.
“I’ve just never seen anything like it,” Mattingly said. “Guy hasn’t balked in seven years and all of a sudden he has three in one hitter? I don’t know. It’s frustrating for sure, but at the end of the day, we got a win, so I’m not going to worry about it.”
Bleier is now tied for the MLB lead in balks this season with the Houston Astros’ Will Smith. They were also the first three balks committed by any Marlins pitcher this season. The Seattle Mariners are now the only team in MLB this season that has yet to commit a balk.
In terms of historical context, Bleier’s three-balk outing:
▪ Is the first in MLB history since at least 1900 in which all three balks came in the same at-bat, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
▪ Is the second three-balk occurrence in MLB history by a pitcher who pitched no more than an inning, joining the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Jim Gott who did it on Aug. 6, 1998 — ironically enough also against the Mets.
▪ Is the seventh pitcher and first Marlins pitcher to have three balks in an inning regardless of the length of his outing.
Overall, Bleier became the 43rd pitcher to be called for three balks in a game in MLB history and the first since Mike Pelfrey on May 17, 2009, for the Mets against the San Francisco Giants.
This after never committing one in his MLB career and being called for just nine balks in the minor league — the most recent being in 2016 when he was with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the New York Yankees’ Triple A affiliate.
Bleier, who the Marlins signed to a two-year deal at the start of spring training that runs through the 2023 season, has been one of the Marlins’ steadier relief pitchers as of late. After pitching to a 5.59 ERA in his first 24 outings of the season, Bleier has a 2.25 ERA over 28 innings spanning 27 relief appearances since the start of July. He has given up multiple runs in an outing just once in that span.
This story was originally published September 28, 2022 at 10:37 AM.
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