Benches cleared between the Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday after Jose Berrios confronted Cal Raleigh for tipping pitches. The catcher vehemently denies the accusations.
A series of videos from the game show exactly what caused the hullabaloo.
Raleigh, in his fifth year on the MLB level, is off to a blazing start over the last few weeks. He is hitting only .233 but his nine home runs and 15 RBIs have helped Seattle to a record of 12-10 and second place in the American League West. The Mariners may also benefit from a signal scandal.
Berrios started to chirp at Raleigh as they walked back to their respective dugouts during the fourth inning of Saturday’s game in Toronto. Raleigh was furious and had to be restrained. His teammates cleared the bench in his defense. The Blue Jays joined them on the field.
Berrios thought he saw Raleigh relaying pitches to Mariners hitters while at second base and told him to knock it off. He considers every at-bat to be a “war” between himself and the hitter, and he did not want the hitter to have an advantage.
Raleigh rejects Berrios’ claims.
They thought I was relaying. I wasn’t. I mean, if you just look at the results, Rowdy was way off-balance. I didn’t have the pitches. But that’s just how it is. I’d want my pitchers doing the same thing if somebody thought they were tipping.
— Cal Raleigh
To relay a sign from the field of play is actually not illegal. It is highly frowned upon but there is no rule against it if Cal Raleigh was indeed tipping pitches from second base. He says he wasn’t.
We may never know the full truth. We can only go off of what we can see for ourselves.
Four different videos from the at-bat in question show the behavior that caused Jose Berrios to be upset.
Pay close attention to how Raleigh either uses or does not use his arms depending on the type of pitch. This was a slurve:
This was a fastball:
This was also a fastball:
This was a changeup:
It appears as though Raleigh was swinging his arm to indicate a fastball vs. an off-speed pitch with “appears” being the key word. Berrios shields his grip to runners at second base and Alejandro Kirk did not not seem to give anything away behind the dish. It is unclear as to how Raleigh would’ve picked up on the signal. The timing of his arm swing could be a coincidence. He could just be messing around.
And to make this entire saga even more befuddling, the batter who supposedly knew what pitch was coming struck out during the controversial at-bat. And, again, it’s not illegal to tip a pitch from the field!