With Derek Jeter suffering a HBP at the hands of Baltimore SP Jeremy Guthrie early during Saturday’s 11-3 Yankee victory, the Newark Star-Ledger’s Marc Craig notes the Orioles right-hander has now hit 10 Yankees with pitches out of a career total of 37 victims. And that’s not counting spring training assaults on the persons of Mark Teixeira and Francisco Cervelli. No wonder then, that New York manager Joe Girardi is wonder what’s up with his guys being targeted.
“Too many, just too many,” Girardi said. “I don’t really understand it. I know he likes to pitch inside. But it’s just too many. It’s too many.”
Guthrie hit his 14th batter of the season, only two off the American League, held by the Yankees’ A.J. Burnett with 16.
“Just trying to go inside,” Guthrie told reporters after the game. “Derek knows I am going to throw the ball in there all day long, that™s the way I approach it. So I guess it was a good indicator when I tried to throw the pitches away later on in the game they went inside and when I tried to throw that one inside it went way inside.”
Said Guthrie: “It™s just a matter of not having great command tonight.”
Jeter called Guthrie “effectively wild” and said he had not issue with the pitch. He was unaware of how many Yankees Guthrie has plunked through the years.
“I don’t know, I haven’t been counting,” Jeter said.
It’s all probably coincidental, but perhaps Guthrie hoped to remind The Captain that being hit with a baseball feels entirely different than fouling one off.