The Nationals thought Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons hurt their third baseman, Yunel Escobar, with a dirty slide and so they plunked him with a pitch in retaliation. Simmons calmly took his base, declaring afterwards that he wasn’t too bothered by the message pitch.
As far as the Braves were concerned, the hostilities with the Nationals should cease with those events. They prepared to play the Nationals again on Tuesday while putting Monday’s 8-4 victory behind them—or, at least they hoped that’s the way it went.
“They thought the slide was a little late the other day, they got their retaliation, and that should be the end of it,” Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman said.
“Hopefully it ends right there,” echoed Simmons.
There were no further incidents early in the game Tuesday. Simmons popped out in his first at-bat against Nationals starter A.J. Cole and and singled in his second plate appearance.
It wasn’t certain that would be the end of the beef between the teams. There are baseball’s unwritten and often-unclear rules about retribution, plus the backdrop of the rivalry that’s developed between the two teams who have alternated NL East titles in the past three seasons.
“When you play a division rival, especially teams that have won the division back and forth the last few years, there’s always going to be a point to beat that other team,” Freeman said. “We’ve had some history in the past but we’ve got to put the focus on the field.”
Perhaps the tit-for-tat will be enough to diffuse tensions. The Nationals had a player out of the lineup with a big gash in his hand while the Braves had a shortstop who took a slight beaning on a pitch that clipped him.
It was the bottom line of Escobar’s injury that likely peeved the Nationals to the point that Rafael Martin threw a pitch at him in the seventh inning of Monday’s game.
“Look at the facts,” said Nationals infielder Dan Uggla, the former Braves second baseman. “One of our guys got hurt. You can call it a late slide, a clean slide, a dirty slide — who’s to say what’s what? … It’s unfortunate the way it happened.”
The play started when Nationals starter Doug Fister threw wildly to first base on a pick-off attempt in the fifth inning. Simmons ran from first to third on the play and the throw beat him to Escobar by at least a couple steps.
Simmons attempted late slide in which he essentially stabbed at the bag with his right foot. He ended up kicking Escobar in his glove hand, dislodging the glove and the ball and taking a chunk of skin out of Escobar’s hand.
“Andrelton plays with a lot of energy, but that was a B.S. play,” Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper said.
“He really didn’t slide at all,” teammate Ian Desmond said. “It was a pretty ugly slide. You’ve got to be way smarter than that. There’s a right way to play the game, and that’s not the right way.”
On that point, Desmond and Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez both agree that it was an awkward slide.
It’s just that Gonzalez saw the play as another example of Simmons’ less-than-graceful base running rather than any attempt by Simmons to hurt Escobar.
“I’ve been quoted in articles about how bad a baserunner (Simmons) is,” Gonzalez said. “We made fun of him the other day, he think he’s invisible. And I’ve seen that video 15 or 20 different times, and for me it was still just a late slide. You see him going around second, he’s got his head down and he doesn’t even know where he’s at. He just slid late, that’s all.
“And I’m sorry that Escobar got hurt on it. I hope it’s not too serious. But there’s nothing malicious there whatsoever.”
After Martin plunked him during his next at-bat, in the seventh inning, Simmons took his base without incident. The only obvious protestation came from Braves outfielder Jonny Gomes, who was ejected by umpire Bill Welke for leaving the dugout.
There were no further skirmishes between the teams during the game. After the game Simmons said he expected to get hit with a pitch, based on how the Nationals reacted to his slide, so he wasn’t surprised when it happened.
Simmons said he was just going hard for the bag and had no intent of hurting Escobar.
“I’m just glad things didn’t get out of hand and we kept playing baseball and we ended up winning the game,” Simmons said.
