Framber Valdez unraveled against Boston on Tuesday, and MLB made him pay.
The short-tempered starting pitcher got shellacked against the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday and reached a boiling point, customary for him, when he drilled Trevor Story with a 94-mph fastball that prompted a benches-clearing brawl.
As a result of losing his cool in a 10-3 loss and nailing Story, Valdez was suspended for six games, Major League Baseball announced Wednesday.
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Valdez looked like a batting practice pitcher as the Red Sox treated him like a piñata. The meltdown peaked in the fourth inning when Willson Contreras and Wilyer Abreu launched back-to-back homers, pushing the score to a humiliating 10-2. At that point, things only spiraled further.
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch seemed weary of defending the optics.
Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy didn’t buy the scene as accidental.
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“Yes, I do think it was intentional,” Tracy admitted, via the Boston Herald.
“I thought it was weak, and I thought everybody saw it. Their side, our side, I think everybody saw it. And yeah, it was weak.”
Valdez pushed back on that claim after the game.
“It was not intentional. It was not on purpose. It might look like that, but it wasn’t,” Valdez said through an interpreter. “
… I consider the ejection completely unfair given that, first of all, they should have given me a warning. And of course if it was on purpose, then I do it a second time or a third time, of course, I’m getting ejected.”
In trying to send a message, MLB sent one right back and put Valdez in his place.
The NESN broadcast team unloaded on Valdez as the veteran unravelled.
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“That is weak,” said play-by-play man Dave O’Brien. “You give up three home runs, back-to-back shots, and then you drill Trevor Story.”
“You can’t get them out, so you throw at them. What a joke. The one guy who caused it is hiding in the back,” added analyst Will Middlebrooks.
Middlebrooks also took a shot at Valdez’s past, adding, “Well, let’s just hope he doesn’t cross up his catcher now that he’s mad.”
Middlebrooks referred to the nasty incident last season where Valdez crossed up his own catcher, Cesar Salazar, after Salazar tried calling off a Valdez pitch that resulted in a homer.
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Valdez will sit for a week, but when he couldn’t get them out, Valdez went the cheap-shot route, the kind that makes him hard to trust.
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