Major League Baseball suspended Red Sox pitcher Brandon Workman on Tuesday for six games for throwing a pitch close to Evan Longoria’s head on Friday. They meted out no punishment to Tampa Bay Rays pitcher David Price, who beaned David Ortiz that same game.
“I don’t think what they’re doing is fair,” Ortiz told reporters. “I think the rules should be for everybody. We didn’t start this up. I didn’t hit nobody. Workman didn’t hit anybody in the first inning. [David Price] did.”
Ortiz notes that the home plate umpire warned both teams about pitchers throwing at batters but strangely ejected Workman for hitting Longoria and permitted Price to remain in the game after subsequently hitting Mike Carp. A Red Sox player and three coaches, including manager John Farrell, were ejected from Friday’s game, which witnessed both benches clear. The Red Sox won 3-2.
Ortiz has accused Price of “acting like a little girl” for reacting negatively to one of his home run trots and Price has accused Ortiz of imagining himself bigger than the game. “Nobody’s bigger than the game of baseball,” the former first pick in the MLB draft opined, “and sometimes the way he acts out there, he kind of looks like he’s bigger than the game of baseball.”
Ortiz remarks on Tuesday suggest that the Rays-Red Sox feud may continue when the teams meet up again in Tampa on July 25.
“I’m not going to get hit again,” Ortiz explained to reporters. “Not by [Price]. He did it on purpose. He punked me, and that’s very disrespectful. I’m a grown-ass man. I’ve been around the league a long time, and I know how to take care of business on my own.”