Dodgers vs. Phillies beanball debate misses the point

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After the Dodgers’ 7-2 victory over the Phillies Sunday night, discussion focused on the third-inning pitch Hiroki Kuroda fired over the head of Shane Victorino.

Victorino was furious that Kuroda’s pitch was targeted at his head, and he wouldn’t let the point go, gesturing repeatedly that it wasn’t right to throw at a batter’s head. Fine. That’s a legitimate point. I’ve always thought beanballs were senseless too.

But focusing all of the attention on Kuroda’s pitch misses the point: Where was the accountability on the part of the Phillies’ pitchers? The pitch Clay Condrey threw at Russell Martin in the second inning Sunday was a much more dangerous pitch than Kuroda’s at Victorino.

Had Martin not gotten out of the way of a fast ball coming in on him, he’d be in the hospital today with a shattered cheekbone or collapsed eye socket. Had Victorino not moved, the pitch would have sailed well over his head.

But no one afterward was talking about that pitch at Martin ... or, for that matter, about the pitch behind Manny Ramirez’s head in Game 2. Check the news conferences with Joe Torre and Charley Manual (click on ‘Dodgers Drop Phillies’).

Victorino’s outrage was understandable but only if he had an equal sense of right or wrong about what his teammates had done with their head hunting.

-- Mike James