While baseball does have its share of silly unwritten rules, the expectation for players to show effort is absolutely reasonable. And nearly nine years after Jonathan Papelbon’s in-dugout altercation with Bryce Harper, he’s still bothered watching players cost their teams by not running out ground balls.
The Arizona Diamondbacks lost Wednesday afternoon’s game against the Cardinals, 5-1. And though it was unlikely that the D-backs would have been able to put together a four-run, two-out rally, Ketel Marte should have at least been on first base to give Arizona the chance.
Instead, he did this on a grounder to first base to end the game.
ketel marte please run faster pic.twitter.com/U96MsEz4Um
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) April 24, 2024
Marte did not expect Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley to be able to cover first base on the turn for the double play, so he basically went to first on a half jog. And by the time he realized that Helsley was going to be there, Marte was only able to get within a step of beating the throw back to first. Had Marte hustled out of the box at all, he would have been safe easily to extend the game.
Of course, the video made its way over to Papelbon who tweeted about Marte’s poor effort there.
I can’t understand why it’s so hard to run out a ground ball as hard as you can when you’re a big leaguer? https://t.co/u70XZOZOA6
— Jonathan Papelbon (@TheRealJPap58) April 24, 2024
Marte should probably consider himself lucky that the former MLB pitcher wasn’t in the dugout waiting for him after that one.
Jonathan Papelbon attacked Bryce Harper in the dugout seven years ago today because Bryce didn’t hustle on a fly ball pic.twitter.com/GiZ3uVEr0n
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 27, 2022
We know how that would have turned out.
