Atlanta Braves second baseman Whit Merrifield passed the concussion protocol and should be available to play on Wednesday, despite taking a 94-mph fastball to the helmet during the team’s 3-0 win against the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday.
However, the three-time All-Star was fuming in the aftermath of the incident.
Merrifield exited Tuesday’s contest in the seventh inning after being hit by Rockies rookie Jeff Criswell’s heater. According to a report by David O’Brien of The Athletic, the 35-year-old “wobbled on one knee, yelling angrily toward Criswell while he was down, before finally walking slowly to the dugout.”
O’Brien wrote that the situation left a welt “just behind his left ear at the top of his neck.”
“Where the game’s at right now, it’s just ridiculous,” Merrifield said. “I hate where the game’s at right now with that.”
The 2010 ninth-round pick’s outburst continued, coming on the heels of a host of teammates getting hit by pitches in recent weeks.
Catcher Travis d’Arnaud and third baseman Austin Riley were plunked by fastballs in back-to-back contests on Aug. 18 and 19 vs. the Los Angeles Angels. The backstop missed five games with a forearm contusion, and the latter was put on the injured list with a broken hand from which he’s still recovering.
Star centerfielder Michael Harris exited Atlanta’s Aug. 25 game after being hit in the hand but was able to return to action two days later.
“We lost Riley, we almost lost Mike, we almost lost d’Arnaud in a span of two or three weeks,” Merrifield, who’s a player rep on the league’s Competition Committee, said per the report. “The way pitchers are throwing now, there’s no regard for throwing up and in. The guys are throwing as hard as they can, they don’t care where the ball goes. And it’s just… it’s bulls–t.”
Merrifield, who began the year with the Philadelphia Phillies but was released in July and signed by the Braves 10 days later, was far from done with his venting. He pointed to numerous other incidents when hitters were seriously hurt after being beaned by an up-and-in heater.
“No repercussion on [Criswell’s] part, and I mean, without being overly dramatic, that was my life on the line right there,” Merrifield said. “So, I’m sick of it, it’s happening way too much. I watched Taylor Ward get hit in the face last year and have to get reconstructive surgery. Justin Turner got hit in the face last year. It’s happening at an exponential rate. Guys are getting hit in the hand, Mookie Betts broke a bone in his hand this year. It’s just ridiculous, and it has to be fixed. Or, God forbid, something terrible’s going to happen.”
