Phillies Reliever Edubray Ramos Shows Youth Throwing at Asdrubal Cabrera

Phillies reliever Edubray Ramos showed his youth and inexperience at the major-league level when he threw at the head of New York’s Asdrubal Cabrera.

Monday night’s game against the Mets turned heated when Phillies reliever Edubray Ramos threw a fastball over the head of New York Mets shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera. Cabrera and the Mets obviously took offense to the pitch – Cabrera yelled “What the hell are you doing?!” to Ramos -and home plate umpire Alan Porter warned both dugouts.

Phils manager Pete Mackanin had something to say to the umpire about the warning, getting himself ejected in the process.

The Mets were clearly energized after the incident. Ramos walked Cabrera, who flipped his bat vibrantly upon ball four. With the game tied, Jay Bruce followed up Cabrera and knocked a two-run home run to give the Mets the lead.

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Bruce told Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News that the near-hit-by-pitch certainly energized the Mets:

"“It just gets the competitive juices flowing. We’re trying to play baseball and win baseball games, not be worried about stuff like that,” Bruce said. “Obviously no one likes getting balls thrown up at their head. I also can’t say it was on purpose.”"

Ramos and Bruce left the purpose of the pitch up in the air as Ramos told reporters the pitch that got away from him.

However, there is definitely a history between Cabrera and Ramos.Last year, in Ramos’ last appearance of the season, Cabrera rocked a walk-off home run off of Ramos and celebrated in grand fashion, as seen below:

Even though Ramos maintains that the pitch was a mere accident – because no one would ever admit that they intentionally would hit somebody – the history is still there. Ramos had both the motive and the opportunity to get one back on Cabrera after his celebration last September.

Whether or not the move was intentional, Mackanin told reporters that it came at a terrible time and was unacceptable:

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"“There might have been (history with Ramos and Cabrera), there probably was, but I don’t think about that during the course of the game,” Mackanin said. “I’m trying to win a game, it’s a tied game in the eighth inning and if in fact he did do that intentionally for whatever reason, we don’t play that way. I don’t play that way. It’s inappropriate, especially with a tied game in the eighth inning.”"

As Mackanin explained, throwing at Cabrera was ill-timed. It motivated the opposition, giving them the boost they needed to help win the game.

Ramos, in just his second major-league season at age 24, probably underestimated the gravity of the situation.

Assuming Ramos did throw at Cabrera on purpose, that would mean he let his emotions and personal vendetta outweigh the needs of the team. Philadelphia needed Ramos to keep the game tied if they had any chance to win the game. Instead, it led to the Mets taking a two-run lead with all the motivation. Even with Brock Stassi’s home run in the bottom of the ninth, it wasn’t enough to compensate for the deficit created by Ramos.

Next: Phillies Addressing Bullpen Questions

The Phillies need Ramos to learn from this situation and become a more mature. He has the potential to be a piece in the future bullpen, but incidents like this can’t become commonplace.