ESPN 710’s Shannon Drayer reports that Cliff Lee’s suspension for throwing a pitch over the head of Arizona’s Chris Snyder during a spring training game has been dropped by Major League Baseball.
Lee’s defense, in a nutshell, was that he had been struggling with his command early in spring training anyway, and that he really had no control over the ball that hit sailed past Snyder’s noggin.
And who knows really if that was truly the case? What can be assumed, however, is that if there is a hint that the real problem was injury-related, Major League Baseball probably didn’t want to step into some sort of grievance with the union over it. And I can’t say that I blame them.
No matter the case, however, this was the right call. Even if there was no injury issue, a suspension seemed pretty out-of-order in this instance. This was a spring training game. Snyder was not hit. To the extent there was any bad blood as a result of it, it happened when Snyder started walking towards the mound.
The non-call is the right call here.
