Dodgers News: Hit Batters Have Fueled Bad Blood

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks don’t like each other. As in, not even a little bit. They’ve had their past forays with each other, but this is a new season and a new beginning. Except nope. In the first game, the Dodgers hit two batters and Arizona hit one. In the second game, the Diamondbacks hit three. Welcome to the new year.

On Wednesday night, the plethora of hit batters led to yelling back and forth between the two dugouts, and it led to home plate umpire Brian Gorman issuing warnings to each team to knock it off and stop hitting batters. It’s hard to say any of it was intentional, but the umpire handled the job well, and Arizona manager Chip Hale talked about the incident.

From Mike DiGiovanna, contact reporter for the Los Angeles Times:

“When a bunch of guys start getting hit, that’s going to happen,” Hale said. “That’s fine with me. I just told him I don’t appreciate someone from their dugout yelling at me. That’s why I’m yelling. I didn’t want him to be offended by me yelling across. He said, ‘I’ll take care of it.’ That was good. Brian did a nice job.”

No matter the job the home plate umpire did, the constant hitting of batters needs to stop. Especially since the Dodgers have already been plunked a league-high nine times this season. That’s one per game. It’s become a tad ridiculous considering they’ve been hit four times in two games so far in this series.

The fact the Dodgers are continually getting hit at a high rate has to raise some concerns about whether or not this is all intentional. Maybe teams are trying to push buttons and see what happens. Either way, this little rivalry has now taken on a life of its own thanks to the constant beanings.