Jake Peavy is a Grateful Dead guy, and fans of the Grateful Dead and Bone Thugs in Harmony rarely mix. That’s one possible explanation for Peavy saying something to Cubs catcher/outfielder Kyle Schwarber on Sunday. More likely, Peavy just wanted the rookie to get in the danged batter’s box already, God bless it!
Thanks to Andrew Baggarly, who asked Peavy about a moment I didn’t notice while watching the game.
Normally it’s Madison Bumgarner who yells at opposing hitters. On Sunday, it was Jake Peavy. He snapped at Cubs rookie Kyle Schwarber in the fifth and appeared to be telling him to get back in the batter’s box.
“That’s just what I said to him,” Peavy said. “Just get in the box, like all his other teammates did, and not kick dirt around and listen to his intro song. I’m not trying to start anything. With this pace of game thing, especially for a young guy – and he’s playing well – but just get in there like (Anthony) Rizzo, who got in there right behind him.”
The frustration was palpable by the fifth inning.
- Giants were down 2-0.
- They were at the end of an exhausting road trip full of losses that should’ve been wins.
- Jake Arrieta plunked Nori Aoki in the head in the third inning.
- Arrieta threw a brushback pitch to Hunter Pence in the fourth inning.
- The Giants knew they probably weren’t going to score many/any runs against Arrieta.
And, perhaps most of all, they were sick of Schwarber treating Giants pitches like batting practice tossers. Peavy had a hand in cooling him down a little, as Schwarber went 0-for-3 with a walk on Sunday after going 5-for-12 with a homer, a double and a walk over the first three games of the series. Who knows, maybe the Giants noticed that Schwarber was taking his sweet time, and Peavy wanted to break his rhythm.
Because it sounded like a fun way to get some extra use out of my DVR, I went back and watched Schwarber’s at-bat in the fifth inning to see what happened.
I’m not an expert lipreader, but it looks like Peavy asked, “What is that?” Then Schwarber, instead of getting into the box, backed a few feet farther away while “Thuggish Ruggish Bone” played over the new (and exceptionally loud, by all accounts) Wrigley Field speaker system.
It looked like Schwarber may have asked Buster Posey what Peavy was talking about, and Posey definitely said something to Schwarber. One would have to ask Posey what he said, and it’s doubtful that he’d even answer the question, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he said something along the lines of what Peavy told Baggs.
Peavy threw his first pitch low and outside for a ball, and Schwarber responded to the episode with a smirk.
All in all, it was an innocuous moment that — along with all the hit batsmen — will add a little more flavor to the next series between the Cubs and the Giants (which will take place at AT&T Park on Aug. 25-27). Since Schwarber is white, it wasn’t a situation that Bill Baer could pounce on and cry “racist,” like he did with Bumgarner recently. But the idea that Schwarber can’t enjoy a classic ’90s rap tune for a few extra seconds didn’t resonate well with Keith Law.
The Baseball Etiquette Cops strike again! https://t.co/vsm22gcJzh
— keithlaw (@keithlaw) August 10, 2015
I mean, if I played, I’d walk up to “Blitzkrieg” and play air guitar with the bat all the way to the damn batter’s box if Peavy was pitching
— keithlaw (@keithlaw) August 10, 2015
One last note: of the three players Bumgarner yelled at this season, two are rookies (Alex Guerrero and Delino DeShields). The old school Giants love their own rookies — Matt Duffy and Chris Heston come to mind — but they don’t seem all that impressed with the more expressive players from this year’s freshman class.
