Ron Darling’s ‘It’s too late to throw at a guy after he’s beaten your brains in’ illustrated Brewers-Mets absurdity

We’re only a couple of days into the 2024 MLB season, but the “Days since last ridiculous controversy” counter keeps getting reset to zero. The latest culprits there are the New York Mets. On Friday, they and the Milwaukee Brewers wound up in quite the moment thanks to a benches-clearing brawl following the Brewers’ Rhys Hoskins’ slide into second base against Jeff McNeil:

Brewers-Mets bench-clearing drama!

New York's Jeff McNeil was livid over a slide at second base from Milwaukee's Rhys Hoskins.

McNeil voiced his displeasure for several minutes and Hoskins gave a crybaby mimicking gesture back.

After review, there was no slide violation. pic.twitter.com/UXnjF818NQ

— The Comeback (@thecomeback) March 29, 2024

On Saturday, Hoskins’ first three at-bats went normally, and he went three-for-three with four RBIs. But on his fourth at-bat, a pitch from Yohan Ramirez went right behind his head. That led to Ramirez’s ejection, and to criticism from SNY analyst Ron Darling on the seeming way-too-late moment the Mets picked to throw at Hoskins here:

"It's too late to throw at a guy after he's beaten your brains in." Ron Darling had quite the take on the pitch to Rhys Hoskins (who was 3-for-3 with 4 RBI) that got Yohan Ramirez ejected. pic.twitter.com/kIEVYvLNkk

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 30, 2024

Darling went into more detail on that later, after both he and fellow analyst Keith Hernandez agreed this was an intentional throw at Hoskins’ head:

Darling expanded on that later. “The message is about two hours late. You know, if you wanted to send a message for what happened yesterday to protect your second baseman, McNeil, his first at-bat, you brush him back. …You don’t throw at someone after he beat your head in.” pic.twitter.com/QAE0CdO1ue

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 30, 2024

This does go to show some of what’s made the Mets’ TV crew of Darling, Hernandez, and Gary Cohen beloved even by many fans of other teams. They’re far from afraid to call out missteps by the team they’re covering. And this was the latest example of that.

[Awful Announcing on Twitter/X]