Padres’ Carlos Quentin Suspended 8 Games For Role in Brawl

After being hit by a pitch in Thursday night’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres left fielder Carlos Quentin charged the mound and went after Dodgers pitcher Zach Greinke. As soon as Quentin charged the mound, all hell broke loose.

Greinke had a lapse in intelligence and decided it would be best to lower his shoulder and take the full force of a hit from a man that weighs 40-pounds more. Unfortunately for Greinke and the Dodgers, the results are exactly what you would expect. Greinke suffered a broken collarbone and will likely be out of action until mid-June.

Because of the injury, people around the league were calling for a lengthy suspension for Quentin, but when the league announced their punishment today it doesn’t look like they agreed.

The MLB announced Quentin’s suspension on Friday night:

People will say that Quentin should be suspended until Greinke is able to return to the mound, but that’s just not the way it works.

You can’t put all of this on Quentin.

Greinke knew very well that taking on a much larger man may not have been the best idea and he paid the unfortunate price. The real issue here is that the charging of the mound and bench clearing has no place in baseball and it needs to stop.

Baseball thinks they can always police themselves, but that level of arrogance hasn’t always worked out for them, now has it?