Amid the banter, MLB players are getting too hot-headed

It had a spotlight shown on Sunday, and the brightness was turned up on Monday. MLB players barking at each other shows emotion, but they’re behaving immaturely.

On Sunday, Madison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants missed the location of his pitch and Max Muncy of the Los Angeles Dodgers turned on it and sent it into McCovey Cove. Bumgarner took some exception to Muncy’s observance of said baseball which led to a heated exchange between the two as Muncy rounded the bases.

Good for you Muncy for taking advantage of the missed location, but also good on Bumgarner for taking the high road in the following plate appearances and trying to get Muncy out as opposed to drilling him on a first-pitch fastball.

The problem with the scenario above for me? It was the first inning.

Fast-forward to Monday.

Pirates facing the Braves.

A pair of other MLB players: Joe Musgrove is on the bump for the Pittsburgh Pirates against Josh Donaldson of the Atlanta Braves, and Musgrove misses inside and skims the jersey of Donaldson. The hit by pitch sent him to first base, but not without some banter.

Both Musgrove and Donaldson were ejected, as was Pirates’ manager Clint Hurdle.

It didn’t seem like much, but if you want to hear the reasoning in their own words, here’s Donaldson:

Here’s Musgrove:

The commonality between this incident and Bumgarner v. Muncy? It was the first inning.

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Obviously, the outcomes were different, but the timing shines a negative light on all the players involved.

I’m all for emotion in the game of baseball; it needs it. The emotion, however, needs to be appropriate.

The first inning of the game? Not as appropriate as say the seventh inning of a tie game in game five of the ALDS Rangers vs. Blue Jays circa 2015.

What makes it more embarrassing is what resulted from the incidents of Sunday and Monday. The Dodgers ended up winning that game 1-0.

Muncy’s first-inning homer was all the best team in the National League could muster against the man who threw a tantrum because of a home run admiration.

Sure there have been some great t-shirts out of it, but it makes the whole situation look stupid when your team can’t do anything more to back you up.

The Pirates took the brunt of the situation Monday because they lost a start and their manager for the game; maybe more.

Musgrove’s teammate Jameson Taillon took exception to the ejection; airing his frustrations on Twitter:

Add to it the loss of Jordan Lyles to the IL and Taillon’s point turns the spotlight to its brightest setting.

This all leads to my central argument of players are becoming too hot-headed.

Don’t get this confused with you loving all the banter and emotion from the past two days. Reconsider the scenarios in which the incidents occurred and just how unnecessary the behavior of each player was as the tension built.

Sure it was game three of a series between two rivals, but did anyone else react with ‘what the hell are you doing?’ when Bumgarner started walking towards Muncy?

Let it go! You’ve got a whole game still ahead of you!

Donaldson? Stop getting upset because you thought Musgrove was staring you down. Someone has to be the bigger person, and since you have seven years on him, shouldn’t it be you?

This has to stop; specifically instances like this. It’s unnecessary and irresponsible and the only ones who can fix this are the MLB players themselves.