Rhys Hoskins gets the last laugh.
Carlos Mendoza and Yohan Ramírez have been disciplined by MLB for throwing at the Milwaukee Brewers first baseman/DH on Saturday. Ramírez received a three-game suspension and an undisclosed fine but will appeal. The right-hander will be in a holding pattern of sorts until the completion of the appeal process.
Mendoza, the Mets’ first-year manager, received a one-game suspension and will serve it Sunday, when the season-opening series between the two clubs conclude at Citi Field.
In the seventh inning of the Mets’ 7-6 loss to the Brewers on Saturday, Ramírez threw behind Hoskins. The Mets were down 6-2 and Hoskins had driven in four of those runs for Milwaukee.
The pitch was not intentional, the Mets insisted. Ramírez, a pitcher who has historically struggled with control, said he simply lost control of his mid-90s MPH sinker when Hoskins came up in the seventh inning. The pitch was so high and tight that Hoskins was forced to duck.
“I was trying to throw my sinker inside,” Ramírez said through a translator. “Sometimes when I try to get it too [inside], the ball just just just runs. And honestly, with this type of weather. I don’t have the grip that I’m accustomed to having. So at that point, the ball just ran but I wasn’t trying to hit him.”
Hoskins disagreed.
“Big leaguers don’t miss by 8 feet,” he said. “Whether it was on purpose or not is really not for me to decide. But this game has had a way of policing itself for many, many years. So let’s focus on doing it the right way if we’re going to do that.”
This incident stemmed from one on Opening Day when Jeff McNeil took offense to a hard, late slide by Hoskins that knocked him off the second base bag. The benches and bullpens both cleared but no punches were thrown.
The slide was deemed legal.
“It’s not like we’re trying to hit them,” Mendoza said. “But what happened yesterday with a slide was legal. Our job is to get him out and we didn’t do a good job today. He was having a really good game and pretty much that was the game there.”
After Friday’s game, Hoskins insinuated that McNeil, an emotional player, was being a poor sport.
“A few choice words,” Hoskins told reporters Friday. “But I’ve played in this ballpark a bunch, and he just seems to be complaining when things aren’t going well and I think that’s kind of one of those moments. Maybe lost in the heat of the game a little bit. But again, I think it was just playing the game hard and playing the game the right way.”
Hoskins made a crybaby motion to McNeil during the scuffle and continued to taunt the Mets with the same motion from the dugout Saturday. However, the visitors had the upper hand with any gamesmanship, with Hoskins going 3-for-4 with a two-run homer, a two-run double, two runs scored and a walk as the DH in Milwaukee’s Saturday win.
A former first baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, Hoskins has a history with the Mets. In 2019, former Mets’ right-hander Jacob Rhame threw at Hoskins after the Phillies in retaliation for two Mets being plunked earlier in the series. One night later, Hoskins homered off Rhame and took his time with a home run trot, taking 34.2 seconds to run around the bases.
