Should the Phillies retaliate against the Braves? Yes, say NBC Sports Philly’s Ben Davis and Rubén Amaro Jr.
Bryce Harper was hit in the elbow in Tuesday’s series opener. After a rainout Wednesday, there could be fireworks during today’s doubleheader.
Baseball has plenty of unwritten rules, and you can probably expect one to be invoked during Thursday’s doubleheader between the Phillies and Atlanta Braves.
On Tuesday, Phillies slugger Bryce Harper was hit on his surgically-repaired elbow by a 95 mph pitch thrown by Braves ace Spencer Strider. Thankfully, Harper escaped with just a bruised right elbow (though he was out of the lineup Thursday) and Strider — making just his third start since undergoing Tommy John surgery — appeared to regret the incident following the game.
“If I think someone’s throwing at one of my pitchers, I don’t know what I’d do,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson told reporters Thursday. “But if it’s a pitch that gets away from a pitcher, which I believe it was and I think that everyone in that clubhouse thinks it was, that’s baseball. It happens.”
So that means the Phillies won’t retaliate by hitting a Braves player at some point during Thursday’s rain-delayed doubleheader, right? Not necessarily, according to a few longtime Phillies analysts.
“I think it stays the same,” former MLB catcher and current NBC Sports Philadelphia analyst Ben Davis said Thursday morning on 94.1 WIP. “Strider’s not going to miss by that much, and it’s just too coincidental.”
“I hope they go about it the right way,” Davis added. “They can’t do it too early and make it look obvious, where a guy gets kicked out or suspended.”
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Former Phillies general manager turned NBC Sports Philly analyst Rubén Amaro Jr. agreed. Even if Strider wasn’t intentionally gunning for Harper, Amaro pointed out that the Braves starter had already hit three batters heading into Tuesday’s game and predicted “someone will pay” for Harper getting plunked.
“There’s a lot of baseball to play against the Atlanta Braves, and I will tell you that somebody on that mound will do the job by retaliating,” Amaro said during Tuesday’s postgame show. “I’m not sure when. They have plenty of time to do it. But it certainly should happen, because, for me, even if it wasn’t purposeful to hit him, I think the retaliation is the right thing to do.”
If something does happen during Thursday’s doubleheader, that will leave it up to starters Cristopher Sánchez (4-1, 3.17 ERA) and Zack Wheeler (6-1, 2.42). During Game 2 of the 2022 National League Division Series, Wheeler hit Ronald Acuña Jr. in the elbow, a move Braves fans complained was retaliation following a home run celebration earlier that season.
“He has this demeanor that he’s going to go get someone, but he makes it look not obvious,” Davis said of Wheeler. “It might not be the next start, it might be two starts or three starts after that, but he finds a way to get it done. And he makes it look not suspicious after all.”
Davis said it’s not a matter of if, but when a Phillies pitcher will hit a Braves player. Despite attempts to limit retaliation, Davis recalled times during his career when opposing batters would step up to the plate and ask, “Is it me?”
“You’ve got to defend your guys,” Davis said.