Collisions at the plate used to be far more common in Major League Baseball than they are in today’s game. No matter how much bubble wrap and protection is put in place, they will still occur, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a dirty play.
That was the case on Sunday in Houston when Angels catcher Jonathan Lucroy was knocked out after a collision with Astros outfielder Jake Marisnick.
Lucroy got put in a coffin…pic.twitter.com/nE1cgFEznD
— SportsGossip.com (@sportsgossip) July 7, 2019
Despite being called out on the play, Marisnick appeared to be making an attempt to avoid a collision Lucroy when the two unfortunately collided. On top of that, the Astros outfielder was immediately concerned with Lucroy’s well-being.
All of that didn’t matter to Angels manager Brad Ausmus. He called it a dirty play and wants Marisnick to be suspended for it.
Ausmus, on the play at the plate: "It certainly didn’t look like a clean play… It looked like Marisnick took a step to the left and bowled into him with his arm up. The call was right. MLB should probably take a look at it and consider some type of suspension quite frankly.”
— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) July 7, 2019
Ausmus isn’t being honest with himself here. Anyone who watches the slow motion replay of the play can see that Marisnick’s move to the left was in response to Lucroy’s move to his own left, therefore he was attempting to avoid the unavoidable.
If Marisnick meant to run him over then there’s no way he would have immediately been checking on him. It happened, it’s unfortunate, but it wasn’t on purpose and it wasn’t a dirty play.
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