Lots of debate surrounding Tyler Austin’s slide into 2nd base last night (4/11/18) when he spiked Brock Holt of the Red Sox in the 3rd inning at Fenway Park. Brock made a comment to Austin which caused both benches to empty. No punches were thrown, and the incident was over (for the moment). In the 7th inning Red Sox relief pitcher Joe Kelly hit Tyler Austin with a 98 mph fastball. Austin slammed his bat down and charged the mound. This time punches were thrown, and suspensions will follow.
Here are a few of my initial thoughts:
** Up until the recent rule change, Austin’s slide would have been universally accepted as a clean slide.
** Even with the new slide rule at 2nd base the slide was considered a permissible slide.
**Therefore Tyler Austin did nothing wrong.
** Brock Holt is primarily a 2nd baseman / utility player. He is not an every day SS. He is playing SS right now due to the injury to Xander Bogaerts. Last year Holt played zero games at the SS position. If he didn’t want to get spiked, he should have come off the bag quicker, or jumped in the air over Austin, or land on Austin for that matter. There are many ways an everyday SS would have made that play without getting spiked. Holt played it almost like a 1st baseman.
** Holt & Kelly might have done the NY Yankees a favor. The Yankees came into the game with a sub .500 record, and trying to recover from an embarrassing 14-1 beat-down by the Red Sox the night before. The brawl seemed to galvanize the Yankees. We shall see.
** As far as Brock Holt is concerned, the only good thing I can say about him is … he is honest. After the game he was quoted as saying ..
” We’re not trying to fight those guys over there. They’re big.” – Brock Holt
** When it comes to Tyler Austin, I have always been a fan of his. Check out the interview I did with Tyler Austin’s Mom Kim, back in Sept. 2016
