Championship Subdivision Football | FCS Football | Stadiums | Blogs | Forums

Yahoo! Sports is reporting that newly-acquired Mariners pitcher Cliff Lee has been suspended for five games to open the regular season for his actions in a spring tilt vs. Jon's beloved Diamondbacks. Lee was ejected after throwing over a Dback's head, which prompted a charging of the mound. The Dback called the play "bush league," but Lee is claiming that it was nothing more than a case of losing control of inside pitches.

Regular season suspensions resulting from spring training incidents are apparently rare. Is it justified in this case? Given how early in spring training it is, I'm not so sure. Only if they can prove intent, and I don't know how they can do that.

Lee has not appealed as of yet, though his manager expects that he will. Lee expects to be paired with last year's ace at the top of the rotation.

The ex-Phillie factor at work!

At face value, it seems like the punishment exceeds the crime, but I'd have to see the buildup in previous innings and at-bats to see if it was justified. Were warnings given? Was the ball truly thrown "over the head" as a tit-for-tat from a previous bean ball or was it a heater right at the face that could end a career? If it was the latter, then yes, it's truly dangerous, and I don't have a problem making him miss the one regular season start.

He threw really inside to him on the pitch before and then on the next one he sailed it over his head. Not hard to jump to the conclusion that he was throwing at him - happens all the time. And a 5 game suspension for a starting pitcher is typical in these cases, Spring Training or no (an injury in Spring Training isn't much different than an injury in the regular season - you're still injured). I've got no problem with the suspension and I have no problem with Lee throwing at the guy - it's baseball.