Hanley

Apparently Marlins manager Freddi Sanchez benched shortstop Hanley Ramirez, the best player in his organization by far, for failing to run hard enough after a ground ball that he booted into the outfield. The Mets announcers in the game yesterday were going on and on about how good a move that was by Sanchez, and moreover how bad it was that Hanley responded by attacking his manager (saying he "didn't know what it was like" to be a big-league baseball player). I would have no serious disagreement with them, save maybe in enthusiasm level, except for one thing.
It's not that I really disagree with the thing about hustling. Ron Darling is right, it is the easiest part of the game, and it doesn't take any skill, so there is, usually, no good reason not to do it. (I do think, however, that there can be situations in which the cost-benefit analysis of spending energy on flagrantly hopeless causes is not favorable.) I'm also not a huge fan of discipline, but I do kind of get it that it might just plain psychologically work in this kind of situation, and baseball is after all a team sport. Nor do I really disagree with the idea of having team players just not publicly criticize their manager in the manner Hanley used the other day. I don't really like this kind of thing; it rubs me the wrong way, etc., but I don't think I really have any substantive objection to it. That's not my problem here.

Here's the thing that bothered me listening to Gary and Ron talking about this: they didn't listen to what Hanley had said. What he said was that he was in considerable pain at the time from a ball he had fouled off of his leg. In other words, Hanley said, he did run after the ball, as fast as he could. It's just that his leg hurt so much that that didn't end up being very fast. Now, it strikes me that this is at least a plausible claim: that is to say, if Hanley Ramirez is telling the truth about his being in pain at the time, then he committed no genuine infraction. In fact, he was exhibiting the supposedly-praised desire to stay in the game at all costs (and demonstrating one of the problems with that attitude, namely and to wit that you sometimes get worse net players that way). So isn't it worth considering whether we think he's right about that? Mightn't Freddi Gonzalez have wanted to consider the question as well? Not before he took Ramirez out of the lineup, since he should've done that anyway with a player who couldn't run after a ball because of pain, but before he publicly denounced him. And then before he publicly denounced him again for publicly denouncing him (Gonzalez). And mightn't the Mets announcers have considered this whole aspect of the situation before finding unequivocally for Gonzalez? It struck me as strangely lacking in due diligence for the best announcing crew in baseball.