The Red Sox are going to be really interesting to watch this season not just because they'll compete for a playoff spot and possibly more, but because they seem to be pissing off every other team they play.
The other night, Shea Hillenbrand took a 3-1 pitch, thought it was ball 4 and started walking down to first base. The umpire called it a strike, Shea returned to the batter's box, and grounded into a double play. Josh Beckett, who was on the mound, barked at Hillenbrand. Actually, it was more like he berated Hillenbrand.
The incident ended with nothing notable happening later. However, Hillenbrand keeps complaining about it. Now, I don't know what Beckett said, and it may have been out of line. Shea is a solid and hard working player and he usually doesn't pull crap to try to sneak on base. Also, at least when he was with us in Boston, his batting eye isn't world renowned. He very well could have misjudged the strike call. But the whole thing should have just ended.
Shea is calling out Beckett through the media, accusing Beckett of actions he "should be embarrassed" about. Whether or not that is true, I don't know. Pitchers and batters have all sorts of confrontations, verbal and nonverbal, physical and nonphysical. This seems to be one of many but Shea is taking it to a whole new level.
The two are bound to face each other again as we have 16 more encounters with the Jays. Beckett will probably be starting in the opener of the 3 game series that begins in a week up in Toronto. It should be interesting, to say the least.
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Ok, this is how it all happened: Hillenbrand innocently thought it was ball four, but it was a strike. Beckett didn't like that Hillenbrand thought it was a ball. So he was far too excited to see him ground into that double play. I mean, I was seeing him saying things that were so out of line in Shea's direction. Then, it was Beckett who started saying shit about Hillenbrand to the media. It was along the lines of: "It was a strike, and I don't like the way he plays the game," and so on. So then Hillenbrand responded with whatever it was that you heard him say. Then, like two days later, he (Hillenbrand) was like, "I really don't even care about that whole situation anymore," and just moved on from it.
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