More on the ejection

Today's PG tries to shed a little light on the Perez ejection situation. Home plate umpire Eric Cooper was informed before our recent series with the Cardinals started to look out for funny business between the two tems. They apparently failed to tell him to use common sense. When Luna hit Perez yesterday it was just too much for Cooper to bear,

"I was certain that, given the variables involved, with the pitcher hitting behind Luna, Perez was throwing at him intentionally," Cooper told a pool reporter.

It was the second time in the series Luna had been beaned, the first time by Mark Redman. You know, that guy who's had so much control trouble lately he doesn't even have two strikes outs for every walk and even if he wanted to probably couldn't break a window with his fastball. Let's not even talk about Perez who couldn't throw a ball where he wanted if his life was on the line right now. And then there's the bullpen, which has been mightily overworked lately, so it makes perfect sense we would want to risk getting our starter tossed in the second inning. Have I even mentioned that the person that's at least 50% of the source of this feud (with LaRussa being the other half) was fired last week? There was simply no way Perez was throwing at Luna. Unless you ask LaRussa,

"Whether it's accident or whatever, I thought it was a good call," La Russa said. "It just looks so bad. You don't need to read intent."

What did Luna have to say?

Luna, who speaks halting English, said only that he was "surprised" Perez was ejected, especially because he was hit on the leg.

Don't forget we were beaned three times in the series without incident, with Craig Wilson taking two of them. I guess when you're almost 30 games below .500 playing the team with the best record in baseball managed by one of the smuggest, most self-righteous SOBs this side of Curt Schilling you shouldn't expect much respect. But that still doesn't make it right.