Watch: Twins break unwritten rule, Max Kepler gets drilled for it
Baseball's unwritten rules marred the end of Minnesota's 13-6 win over the Rangers Thursday night, and it's again led to debate about what's right and wrong in a children's game played by adults making millions of dollars.
Leading 13-5 in the ninth inning, Twins outfielder Jake Cave swung at a 3-0 pitch and ripped it to right field for a single.
That's a no-no in baseball because it's apparently the equivalent of kicking someone while they're down, and Rangers pitcher Shawn Kelley, 35, subscribes to the old school rules.
The next batter was Max Kepler, who Kelley fell behind 3-0 and then drilled him in the shoulder with a 93 mph fastball.
Tom Froemming of Twins Daily captured it all and posted the video, and radio audio, to Twitter.
Here's some of the conversation from both the #MNTwins TV and radio broadcasts regarding the Jake Cave 3-0 hit and the Max Kepler hit by pitch that followed. pic.twitter.com/uqx1MWyOPY
— Tom Froemming (@TFTwins) August 16, 2019
"That was on purpose," said Fox Sports North broadcaster Roy Smalley.
But if you watch the video closely you can see Cave react as if he didn't know the count was 3-0 when he swung. So really, the Rangers elected to throw a hard ball as hard as they could at a guy who had nothing to do with the situation.
Man, if only the count was 2-0 when Cave swung the bat. That'd make everything different, because it's, like, you know, totally different.
Regardless, Kepler took the beaning like an adult, dropping his bat and jogging to first base without staring down the pitcher or making the situation worse.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.