MLB Daily: The Royals Really Don't Like Brett Lawrie; A-Rod Closing in on Mays; Nelson Cruz Homers Again

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Sports Entertainment: All that was missing from this weekend’s Athletic-Royals series in Kansas City were a couple Stone Cold Stunners and ensuing beer-on-the-chest celebration. We’ve seen dust-ups and beanball wars throughout recent baseball history, but nothing quite like what followed Brett Lawrie’s dirty/late takeout slide on Alicedes Escobar Friday night.

Lawrie, now in his fifth year, has managed a fairly unremarkable career to this point despite loads of hype when he came up in 2011 with the Jays. If anything he’s gained a reputation as a guy who “plays hard,” but often misses time to injury. He also looks like a dude who mainlines Rockstar Energy Drinks and gives off the vibe of an old-time hockey or pro wrestling agitator. There’s no arguing that his slide on Escobar was late but here’s what it triggered:

• A bizarre story about a text message apology that may or may not have been received by Escobar. Lawrie sent an apology to a number that he got from Eric Hosmer, but it probably wasn’t Escobar who received it.
• Yordano Ventura throwing at Lawrie on Saturday, which cleared the benches for the second consecutive day earning the Royals righty an ejection.
• Scott Kazmir hitting Lorenzo Cain in the foot during the first inning on Sunday, leading to Ned Yost being ejected along with Royals’ pitching coach Dave Eiland, for yelling at Kazmir.
• Kelvin Herrera throwing a pitch behind Lawrie in the eighth inning on Sunday, leading to his ejection along with KC bench coach Don Wakamatsu and Escobar, who wasn’t even playing. Herrera walked to the dugout pointing to his head and yelling threats at Lawrie.

Got all that? Here’s the clubhouse interviews from Sunday, in which Lawrie (wearing Ultimate Warrior style eye black) called Herrera’s actions “bullshit.”

There’s a lot to unpack here. Two consecutive days of beanballs and purpose pitches over one takeout slide seems excessive. So either there is more going on between Lawrie and the Royals than anyone is letting on to the media, or the Royals are being a little overly sensitive. (Ventura did get into it with Mike Trout last weekend, too.) However mad Herrera might be or want to stand up for his teammates, throwing at (or behind) someone in the eighth inning of a game with your team trailing 2-1 sends one message. A dumb one.

As the old adage goes, two wrongs don’t make a right. Lawrie’s slide on Escobar was uncalled for and dangerous, but throwing someone’s head with a 100 mph fastball is equally reckless. Baseball’s unwritten rules and self-policing policies remain as confusing as ever.

Bigger picture, this could be a sign the Royals are pissed off they’ve been hit by 14 pitches already on the season. Or do they really hate Lawrie that much? Kansas City won the game thanks to a late hit by Cain, so they wound up making the biggest statement that way.

Good luck to whichever umpiring crew draws the June 26 series when the two teams meet at the Oc.co Coliseum.

Hallelujah: For those scoring at home, ESPN’s Sunday night game between the Reds and Cardinals took 2:02 to complete — thank you Adam Wainwright. Like most people, I didn’t realize this until Game of Thrones and the rest of Sunday’s stacked television lineup was over. Yes, ESPN airing baseball on a Sunday night is a tradition, but even as a baseball fan the last thing I really want to do at the end of the weekend is watch two teams play whom I have zero vested interest in. If I’m part of the all-important, be-all, end-all ratings problem, so be it.

Averages: Through two weeks of the season, the MLB league-wide batting average is .244 with a .695 OPS. The average ERA is 3.78. We know offense is down, but we’re also getting away from the days when a pitch posting a sub-4.00 ERA was something to be heralded.

Dingers: Nelson Cruz hit his eighth home run in Sunday’s 11-10 Mariners walk-off win vs. the Rangers. Through two weeks, Cruz has more home runs than the Indians, Marlins, Phillies, Cardinals and Brewers. Milwaukee only has three, which unfortunately is more than they have wins thanks to a 2-10 record.

A-Rod Watch: A-Rod hit two home runs Friday in Tampa to give him 658 for his career — two away from tying Willie Mays for fourth all-time. The Yankees start a four-game series in Detroit today. Rodriguez has nine homers in 34 games at Comerica Park. Yankees management would love nothing more than for A-Rod to hit three home runs during the series so they don’t have to experience a really awkward moment at Yankee Stadium, since they don’t want to honor the milestone.

This & That: Josh Collmenter, yes really, threw the first complete game shutout of the season on Friday vs. the Giants. He also picked up three hits in the game. … The Mets have won eight straight. Amazing! Less amazing? Losing catcher Travis d’Arnaud to a broken hand. … Braves lefty Andrew McKirahan picked up an 80-game PED suspension on Monday. …

Housekeeping: On Friday I surmised an idea about a reader-contributed portion (i.e. a paragraph) for this post on Fridays. As per usual I didn’t think about the logistics of how that would be accomplished. I’m still thinking of the best way to make this happen, perhaps creating an email for submissions. Stay tuned.

[Yw]