(video) Amir Garrett charges the Pirates dugout and tries to take on the entire team on his own (now with PHOTOS)

Red(s)HawksFan

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I think it was pretty clear that the Pirates never stopped chirping after Kela buzzed Dietrich. Votto was over there talking at them between innings, and it sure looked to me like Garrett was reacting to someone saying something when decided to head in the direction of the Pirates dugout. Again, not justifying in any way his decision to start swinging but I really don't think that anything had been settled or de-escalated before the brawl began.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I think the breakdown video said Crick but I’m not 100% sure
Crick was the one that Puig was after. He was wearing a uniform jersey with his name on it. The guy Garrett nearly clocked was not wearing a jersey, or he had a sweatshirt over the jersey. I'm not familiar enough with Pirate personnel to identify him without the uniform.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Upon further review of the video, it was Trevor Williams that was the target of Garrett's first punch (IDed at ~3:45 of this video). Crick wasn't far away as the punch landed and then Archer and Josh Bell and a bunch of other Pirates piled onto Garrett. Williams was one of the players fined (Archer was not).
 

singaporesoxfan

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I understand why they went hard after Kela, and I completely agree that intentionally throwing at a guy needs to be stamped out from the game. I guess what is different in this situation is that after Kela went after Dietrich, if Dietrich had charged the mound and went after him and they had the brawl, it still wouldn't be right or okay, but it is an accepted part of the game that when a dude throws at you, it is time to rumble.

What Garrett did, was take a situation that had somewhat been de-escalated from the Kela vs Dietrich incident, and irrationally decided to incite a huge brawl by running into the opposing dugout. That is a different layer, and I don't think with that kind of action you can hide behind the fact that Kela started it. Yes Kela started it by throwing at Dietrich, but Kela didn't really start this giant brawl, that was all Garrett. I guess you could make the argument that what Garrett did was actually safer than if he had tried to bean the next Pittsburgh batter in the head.

I think whatever MLB uncovered through this investigation, it was clear to them that this was an issue involving Pittsburgh first and Cincinnati second, despite the actions of Garrett, Puig and Bell and that they needed to be punished the hardest. I just think that Garrett should have gotten the biggest suspension.
Maybe MLB isn’t looking at things in isolation. The Pirates seem to have been pursuing a strategy of intentionally throwing up and in for a while. If Olney’s stats are right, they’ve hit people with fastballs 320 times since 2013, 41 times more than any other club. The rest of the NL Central (perhaps the Reds most vocally) has been complaining about it for a while, because they feel Pittsburgh exploits the fact that if the Pirates throw up and in until they hit someone, umps just issue warnings on both sides, which means Pittsburgh pitchers effectively get a free pass.

And if you read the press release Kela’s suspension was for 1) intentionally throwing near the head and 2) instigating the incident. I think the head part alone makes me feel like Kela deserved the longest suspension. There’s a huge difference between an intentional HBP that hits the leg and headhunting.
 

singaporesoxfan

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Here’s video of the Kela pitch:

https://twitter.com/atbbttr/status/1156381887381815302?s=21
It’s right near the head, and it’s in retaliation for nothing more than Dietrich apparently showboating after a homer in May. It’s ludicrous

As for Kela’s role in instigation, apparently what he was saying to Joey Votto was “you can get one too” (among other things) so he was threatening to head hunt again.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Your biggest takeaway from that is that Puig is insane? Dude didn't even throw a real punch.
To be fair, it was pretty clear from all the videos that Puig was actively looking to engage and also that nobody from the Pirates really wanted to oblige him.

He may or not be insane but its hard to blame anyone for staying away from him.
 

Bergs

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To be fair, it was pretty clear from all the videos that Puig was actively looking to engage and also that nobody from the Pirates really wanted to oblige him.

He may or not be insane but its hard to blame anyone for staying away from him.
He was certainly talking he talk. If he was "insane" he would have done more. And yeah, no shit. No one wants to get punched in the head by Puig. That really has nothig to do with it.