Atlanta Braves' Whit Merrifield Blasts MLB After Hit By Pitch

Players are getting hit more often with faster pitches than ever in Major League Baseball, and Atlanta Braves' Whit Merrifield has had enough.

Atlanta Braves second baseman Whit Merrifield is hit in the head with a pitch against the Colorado Rockies. / Brett Davis-Imagn Images

A positive update on Atlanta Braves second baseman Whit Merrifield after he took a hit by pitch to the head on Tuesday night is that he is OK. 

“Yeah, he’s fine. No concussion or anything like that,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “If you ask him he’s ready to go tomorrow. 

However, being all right isn’t going to cut it this time for Merrifield, and perhaps it shouldn’t. 

He expressed his frustration about the lack of accountability for pitchers who are throwing heaters up and in to hitters with the consequences it can have. One of them is the injuries and close calls on injuries to his teammates. 

“It’s ridiculous where the game is at right now,” Merrifield said. “We lost [Austin] Riley. We almost lost [Michael Harris II]. We almost lost [Travis] d’Arnaud in the span of two, three weeks.” 

Third baseman Austin Riley is out for the rest of the regular season, with the postseason up in the air, due to a right hand fractured on a hit by pitch. While he only ended up missing part of a game, it looked like Harris would miss a week. 

Merrifield added how the game has changed to allow for more of these type of injuries to happen. 

“You can’t hit a guy back anymore,” Merrifield said. “That ‘oh if I hit this guy, my guy’s gonna get hit.’ That’s not in the game anymore...the teams are bringing pitchers up that don’t know where [their pitches are] going. They throw 100 miles an hour, and they’re like, ‘All right, we’ll see if you can get these guys out.’”  

Merrifield said he would make sure this is addressed to the rules committee to address safety concerns. 

“It is driving me nuts and I hate where the game is at right now with that, and I’m on the rules committee. We got a call tomorrow. And it’s gonna be a long conversation on what they gotta do to make pitchers think. I just took 95 off the back of the head. I’m very lucky I got hit in a good spot.”

If you saw your teammates get injured and then you took one off the head, you’d likely feel the same way. 

We’ll have to wait and see how the rules committee addresses the state of pitching and the injuries it can lead to and if Merrifield is indeed back in the lineup on Wednesday. 

The stats do back that hit-by-pitches are becoming an issue. It’s happening at its highest rate since the 1890s. According to Baseball Reference, there have been, on average, 0.42 hit by pitches per game in 2024. Between 1927 and 1992, the rate was never above 0.25 and rarely above 0.2 per game. It’s been ticking up gradually ever since and now happens twice as much as when your parents and grandparents watched baseball. 

According to Baseball America, the average velocity on a four-seem fastball has gone from 91.9 in 2008 to 94.2 in 2023. There is a correlation to be made. 

I ran the stats from 2008 to 2023 through a coefficient correlation calculator to test how strong of a correlation there is. The scale is between -1 and 1. The closer the r-value to either end, the stronger the correlation with a score close to zero meaning a weaker correlation. The r-value was 0.7973, indicating a strong correlation between increased velocity and increased hit by pitches. 

Though the players at the rules committee might already know this. 

The Braves continue their series with the Rockies on Wednesday and look to win the series. First pitch is set for 7:20 p.m. EDT.