Braves Whit Merrifield Furious After Head HBP

On Tuesday night, the Atlanta Braves moved closer to a wild-card spot with a 3-0 victory over the Colorado Rockies. Chris Sale was on fire, striking out nine in seven scoreless innings and achieving his eighth season with 200 strikeouts. Only Randy Johnson has more among lefties, boasting 14 such seasons.

However, things got tense in the seventh inning when Whit Merrifield took a fastball to the head from Jeff Criswell. Merrifield exchanged words with Criswell while being checked by the trainer and eventually left the game with a welt behind his ear.

“Where the game’s at right now, it’s just ridiculous,” Merrifield said after the game via The Athletic. “… The way pitchers are throwing now, there’s no regard for throwing up and in. The guys are throwing as hard as they can; they don’t care where the ball goes. And it’s just bulls—.”

Merrifield continued by saying that pitchers don’t fear retaliation anymore because they don’t bat themselves. In 2024, hit-by-pitches occurred in 1.1% of plate appearances, similar to 2021’s rate of 1.2%. So eliminating retribution hasn’t increased plunkings; Merrifield is wrong there.

Player Safety Concerns:

Anything that reduces hit-by-pitches is valuable given today’s high velocities in baseball. As a player representative on MLB’s Competition Committee, Merrifield plans to address this issue with them soon: “I’m on the Rules Committee… I just took 95 right off the head… I’m very lucky it got me in a good spot.”

Fans might think it’s about time someone took action on this matter.

The Braves have already suffered from hit-by-pitches recently—Austin Riley broke his hand on August 19th, and Travis d’Arnaud missed time due to a forearm contusion from another pitch. While MLB can’t completely eliminate these incidents—mistakes happen—any measure to protect players should be considered essential.

Merrifield was fortunate to escape Tuesday’s incident with only minor injuries.

What do you think? Should MLB enforce stricter rules?