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Yordano Ventura - The New Carlos Carrasco

For the second time in five days Kansas City's Yordano Ventura has been ejected from a baseball game as a result of him throwing at other players. Last Sunday he was ejected for a retaliation beanball of Brett Lawrie. This was done because of Lawrie's hard slide into second which caused KC shortstop Alcides Escobar to miss a few games.

On Thursday night the matchup was Chicago White Sox Chris Sale matching up against Ventura in what should have been a classic pitchers matchup.

In the fourth inning Ventura hit White Sox first baseman  Jose Abreu to start the innings. Abreu was later thrown out at home but this chain of events did lead to a run for the White Sox. In the top of the fifth inning after getting two outs quickly Sale was ahead in the count 0-2 on Mike Moustakas when he threw a pitch high and tight that hit Moustakas in the shoulder and then ricocheted into his face. He was on the ground not moving for a few seconds but then popped up and jogged to first. Both benches were then warned. If anything was going on between the two teams it should have been over at this point. They both "exchanged blows" and that should be the end of any volleys.

Abreu tied the game 2-2 in the bottom of the fifth with a double. Both pitchers exchanged scoreless frames in the sixth and Sale once more in the top of the seventh. After two quick groundball outs in the bottom of the seventh leadoff hitter Adam Eaton grounded out sharply back to Ventura who stepped off the mound toward Eaton and exchanged some pleasantries before throwing the ball to first.


So after that the benches clears and a host of players were then ejected. It was a pretty festive brawl actually. Not the kind where guys are kinda just milling around. There were some haymakers being thrown and I would assume that there will be plenty of suspensions and fines handed out from the Commissioners Office.

All that Ventura is doing here is placing a target squarely on his back. Anytime he throws the ball up and in on a player the question is going to be in peoples head whether it was intentional or not. This whole thing reminds me a lot of when Carlos Carrasco was being labeled as headhunter. It is also noteworthy that once Carrasco got "good" people stopped using phrases like mentally weak or head case. Since Ventura is already regarded as a premier arm maybe that moniker will not follow him around from start to start.

A couple noteworthy things about both incidents involving Ventura. Both were done when he was pretty much done for the day. He hit Lawrie in a start where he was getting beat up a little bit and probably wasn't long for the game. Thursday nights back and forth with Eaton was done during his final inning on the final out of the night. Both were obviously intentional.

What did Ventura receive for the Lawrie beanball? a $500 fine. Laughable in my opinion.

Carrasco was suspended six games and fined for throwing over the head of the KC's Billy Butler. He was then suspended eight games and fined for hitting Boston's Kevin Youkilis. Granted I do not know what the fine amount was for Carrasco but anything short of seven games for this incident with Ventura is the Commissioner really dropping the ball. 
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