The Curious Case of Cody Ross
By Mike Silva ~ September 2nd, 2008. Filed under: Mike Silva.
I still don’t understand what is the issue Cody Ross has with Mike Pelfrey and the Mets. On Saturday night he was hit on a 1-2 pitch and subsequently created a near brawl as the benches cleared. Mike Pelfrey didn’t back down and even went on to say (and I agree with this) he did Ross “a favor” by hitting him with the 1-2 pitch and that he was reallying only “faking the charge”.
In Sunday’s Miami Herald, Clark Spencer had some quotes from Ross.
”If he wants to pop off, I’ll let him,” Ross said Sunday after reading the comments. “I figure you would do that if you were 3-0 against a team and not 0-3.”
”I didn’t fake charge,” Ross said. “He hit me on purpose, and I jumped up and ran to first. I didn’t take any steps toward the mound. I never looked at him.”
I have a couple of questions for Mr. Ross: First why would Pelfrey, in a 3-0 game, hit a batter intentially with two strikes? The Mets, unlike the Marlins, are in a pennant race and the games mean something. Second, who is Cody Ross? Don’t you think they would be more likely to hit Hanley Ramirez or Mike Jacobs? You can’t even find statistical comparisons for him on Baseball Reference because his career has been so insignificant to date. On the topic of Jacobs, when did he become a tough guy?
Memo to Florida, last year your duped the Mets into a brawl the last weekend of the season. It fired you up and helped you knock the Mets out. You might need a new gameplan this year with this group. Here is an idea: hit, pitch, and catch the ball so you don’t need a pre-fabricated “brawls” to motivate your roster.
Kudos to Josh Thomson at the Mets LoHud Blog for picking up this story.
