Yohan Ramirez delivers message for Mets with brushback heater to Brewers' Rhys Hoskins
Yohan Ramirez of the Mets stands with teammate Francisco Alvarez after Rhys Hoskins of the Brewers was nearly hit with a pitch during the seventh inning at Citi Field on Saturday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
In the aftermath of Rhys Hoskins’ dangerous and late — but somehow deemed legal — slide into Jeff McNeil’s legs in Friday’s season opener, Mets fans on X called for one of the team’s pitchers to stick a fastball in the ribs of Hoskins, a longtime Flushing nemesis from his Phillies days.
If there’s one Met who might have been willing to do it, it was Saturday’s starter, Luis Severino. But the former Yankee was too busy dodging line drives, allowing 12 hits and six runs in his Mets debut in a 7-6 loss to Milwaukee at Citi Field.
Hoskins dented Severino for a two-run single, a two-run homer and a bloop single.
No, it was left to Yohan Ramirez, a 28-year-old righthander making his Mets debut in the seventh inning with the Brewers leading 6-2.
Ramirez’s first pitch to Hoskins was a 94-mph fastball that went behind the designated hitter, causing the 6-4 Hoskins to duck as the ball sailed over the “12” on his uniform back.
It may not have been the most artful brushback pitch. But it was about time.
Hoskins took a few baby steps forward but stayed around the batter’s box before putting his hands on his hips. Ramirez sprinted toward home plate; he later explained through an interpreter that he was going to cover the base, which made no sense because there was only a runner at first.
But it was as believable as Ramirez’s assertion that “the ball just ran . . . I wasn’t trying to hit him.”
A disbelieving Hoskins told Milwaukee reporters: “Big-leaguers don’t miss by eight feet.”
Plate umpire Lance Barrett and Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez got between Ramirez and Hoskins, and that was that.
The umpires converged and ejected Ramirez. As he walked off, he received a standing ovation from the crowd of 30,296.
The ejection is inconsequential. What mattered is that the Mets answered the reckless slide by Hoskins in the only way available to them in today’s game.
“I know it looks really, really bad, but we’re not trying to hit anybody,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “It should end there.”
Is it a coincidence that the Mets, who were one-hit in a 3-1 Opening Day loss, woke up and made a game of it on pinch hitter Brett Baty’s three-run home run in the eighth and Pete Alonso’s solo shot in the ninth? Is it trite to say the Mets finally showed some fight?
Of course players should always slide hard into second when they have a chance to break up a double play. But the 240-pound Hoskins started his slide late and could have inflicted serious injury on McNeil after making contact with both of his legs.
Think about Chase Utley breaking Ruben Tejada’s leg in the 2015 NLDS and you get the picture.
McNeil was incensed, and he had every right to be. Hoskins, who had multiple run-ins with the Mets during his time with the Phillies (including a 34-second home run trot after he was dusted by reliever Jacob Rhame in 2019), taunted McNeil by rubbing his eyes in a “crybaby” motion from the dugout.
Benches and bullpens emptied, after which the umpires got together and decided that Hoskins’ slide was OK because his hands remained on second base.
Would they have felt that way if one of McNeil’s legs had snapped like a twig?
McNeil and other Mets players seemed to disagree that the slide was legal. Mendoza said he accepted the decision.
Something tells us last year’s Mets manager, Buck Showalter, would have made his displeasure with the slide and the umpires’ call known in his postgame comments. It would have taken a while to get it out of him — the truth would have been surrounded by a few folksy diversions into Alabama football and the traffic around Citi Field — but Showalter would have showed McNeil he had his back.
And isn’t that what it’s all about? Protecting your teammates? Or is that allowed only in hockey nowadays?
Since the day when Abner Doubleday didn’t invent baseball, the best way for players to prevent potentially injurious moves has been the threat of hurling the horsehide spheroid at the offending brute.
Because of the game situations, Severino — who in 2016 was ejected for hitting Toronto’s Justin Smoak while with the Yankees as part of a then-ongoing beanball battle and who in 2018 threw his first pitch behind Boston’s Mookie Betts for the same reason — never got the chance.
Before Hoskins came up in the first, the Citi Field scoreboard, above Hoskins’ .000 batting average, displayed an all-caps message: “As Mom always says, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Not quite the sick burn the scoreboard people probably thought it would be, especially once Hoskins lined a first-pitch, two-run single to left.
Six innings later, Ramirez made the more important statement.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.