Ross Stripling Apologizes for Showing up Joe Panik After Throwing Error
There's a fine line in baseball between passion, frustration, and showing up your teammates and Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Ross Stripling stepped way over that line Wednesday night.
With two outs in the sixth inning, Stripling induced a weak groundball down the third baseline that should have ended the inning. Joe Panik came charging in to make a one-handed throw over to first to try and nab Giancarlo Stanton at first. Had he seen how slow Stanton was running he probably would have taken more time, but instead, he came up firing and threw wide of first base.
Then, Stripling lost it. He slapped the ground and yelled over at Panik.
"He's jogging," Stripling appeared to yell.
It was, in Stripling's words, the most disrespectful thing he's ever done on a baseball field, or frankly, maybe ever.
"I'm completely embarrassed about it," Stripling said in his post-game availability. "I simply let the moment get too big for me.
"I mean, I literally can't explain it. I'm honestly, I'm mortified by it. I can't stand that that's the way that it went. I apologized to Joe individually. I even addressed the team because I feel so bad about it. That that can't happen, that should never happen. It'll never happen again for me, I promise you that.
"You can't do anything worse than that to a teammate. I feel terrible."
Stripling said he initially didn't think what he did was so bad. He knew it wasn't a good look, but it was only after the game when he saw the video of exactly what he did that he was disgusted with himself. He pulled Panik aside after the game and apologized to him.
"I mean it's as bad as anything I've ever seen as far as showing up a teammate," Stripling said. "I mean I really can't believe that I did it."
The 31-year-old right-hander then took to Twitter to apologize publicly for his actions.
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