Angel Perdomo suspended for three games, Derek Shelton suspended one game by MLB

Other than the Major League debut of shortstop Alika Williams, Tuesday night’s game would have been a rather uninteresting affair. Another miserable showing from the offense which only managed three hits as the Pirates fell to San Diego 5-1.

Nestled inside was the ejections of both reliever Angel Perdomo and manager Derek Shelton.

In the bottom of the seventh, Juan Soto hit a long, deep drive into the San Deigo night off Perdomo to make it 3-1.

Perdomo took exception to the way Soto and the Padres celebrated the blast, and on the very next pitch drilled Manny Machado in the back.

Both he and manager Derek Shelton were ejected. Today, MLB announced they have both been suspended, Perdomo for three games, Shelton for one. They will begin serving their suspensions today.

The fastball Perdomo hit Machado with was 98.1 MPH, his highest velocity pitch of the year.

If a player or team feels something the opposition was out of line and needs to be addressed, there are certain ways to send the message. Throwing as hard as you can up and in at someone’s back crosses over from message sending to something else entirely, regardless of intent.

Pirate fans will remember in when in 2014 against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Andrew McCutchen was intentionally hit in the back by a 95 MPH fastball as retaliation for the previous night’s HBP and subsequent injury to Paul Goldschmidt.

While Perdomo got one thing right that the Diamondbacks did not, doing the deed right away instead of waiting until later in the game or as Arizona did, wait until another game entirely, it does not change the recklessness of his actions, and they were solely his actions. Unlike Kirk Gibson, Derek Shelton would be the last person in baseball to order a pitcher to do this.

There are certain pitches in certain locations for sending messages. That kind of velocity in that location isn’t ‘old school’, it’s dangerous and has no place in the game. Being hit in the upper back is dangerous enough, but if Perdomo had missed his location in his beaning, we could be talking about something truly serious.

Today’s suspensions hopefully mark the end of the entire situation. The umpires surely met with both teams and explained that any further action deemed intentional will be met with additional fines and suspensions.