UPDATE (3:45 p.m.): Major League Baseball has upheld Bryan Abreu's two-game suspension, but he will not begin serving it until the start of the 2024 season, the league announced Monday.
The original story follows:
The Houston Astros have said over and over to anyone who would listen to them that reliever Bryan Abreu did not intend to nail Rangers outfielder Adolis Garcia with a first pitch, 99-mph fastball in ALCS Game 5 after Garcia showed a lot of emotion, slamming his bat to the ground, after blasting a three-run home run into the left-field seats on his previous at-bat, in what felt like, at the time, was a series-defining moment.
Instead, Garcia's home run was just the precursor to the actual series-defining moment, as Major League Baseball determined that Abreu intentionally threw at Garcia and issued the reliever a two-game suspension, which the hurler appealed.
That appeal will be heard sometime prior to Monday night's Game 7, and there's a possibility that MLB will lessen the penalty. But it's unlikely that the league will wipe out the suspension altogether, meaning that Houston will be without one of, if not their best bullpen arms in a do-or-die Game 7.
Initially, the Astros said that there was no way Abreu would intentionally hit Garcia to put a runner in scoring position in a game Texas was leading 4-2 in the eighth, as Rangers outfielder Evan Carter was on first base.
In Ken Rosenthal's latest piece for 'The Athletic' that dropped Monday morning, Astros players called it 'absurd' that Abreu would intentionally hit Garcia, and some even went as far as to say that the Rangers are getting preferential treatment due to their general manager, Chris Young, who previously worked for MLB.
"Some with the Astros suspect the league also is showing favoritism toward the Rangers because their general manager, Chris Young, worked for the league from May 2018 to Dec. 2020. Young, a former major-league pitcher, rose to senior vice president, replacing Joe Torre as the official who decided suspensions and fines for on-field matters, such as intentionally hitting batters," Rosenthal, who is one of Fox's sideline reporters for the ALCS reported.
MLB declined to comment on those claims, and Young "did not immediately respond to a request for comment,' Rosenthal added.
Even more curious was another report that came in the middle of Fox's broadcast of Game 6 when the network's other sideline reporter for the series, Tom Verducci, said members of the Astros told him that Abreu was working on a new slide step, and that's why the pitch got away from him.
The problem with that claim is that the video of the incident tells an entirely different story.
I can't wait to hear their next excuse on tonight's broadcast.