LINK: Kevin Towers Makes Embarrassing Comments

I’m just going to leave this here, sans commentary. Except I’ll note that the Diamondbacks hit opposing batters 60 times this year, and were hit by their opponents 43 times. Okay, proceed.

Arizona Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers has not shied away from venting frustration about his team’s lack of fight.
Towers has pointed to many instances where his pitchers did not hit a member of the other team after a perceived slight or beaning of a D-back.

Toward the end of the season, the L.A. Dodgers clubbed six home runs in an 8-1 drubbing of the D-backs, which was a game that saw the eventual NL West champs look a little too comfortable in the dugout.

“I was sitting behind home plate that game and when it showed up on the Diamondvision of stuffing bananas down their throats, I felt like we were a punching bag,” Towers told Arizona Sports 620’s Burns and Gambo Tuesday. “Literally, if I would have had a carton of baseballs I would have fired them into the dugout from where I was sitting behind home plate.

“That’s not who we are as Diamondbacks, that’s not how — I mean, it’s a reflection on Gibby, on myself, on our entire organization. They slapped us around and we took it.”

Towers said that has to stop, and following the game he had “a few choice words for the (coaching) staff.”

Nothing changed.

“You’d think the GM comes down and makes it a point to talk to the staff about it that at we need to start protecting our own and doing things differently,” he said. “Probably a week later Goldy gets dinged, and no retaliation. It’s like ‘wait a minute.’

“Not that I don’t take any of our guys from a lesser standpoint, but if Goldy’s getting hit, it’s an eye for an eye, somebody’s going down or somebody’s going to get jackknifed.”

Read the whole thing. You can bet the commissioner’s office is going to.





Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

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bowie
10 years ago

he sounds coo-coo

James
10 years ago
Reply to  bowie

”Arizona’s batters were hit by 43 pitches in 2013 while Arizona’s pitchers hit 60 batters. So apparently he doesn’t want an “eye for an eye.” He wants something more on the order of two eyes.”…..

But how many of those 60 batters hit were just bad control by the pitcher, rather than being done as retaliation? Seems Towers wants a player who will enforce a “right way to play” ethic, you know, like the Braves try to teach everyone. Hmm, Brian McCann is a free agent. Who better to get pitchers to throw at batters at the right time than a catcher?a free agent. Who better to get pitchers to throw at batters at the right time than a catcher?

Brad Johnson
10 years ago
Reply to  James

And how many of those 60 batters hit were from Ian Kennedy? (that’s rhetorical, the answer is 10)