Marlins Manager Dan Jennings' Defending Arizona's Retaliation Is Really Dumb

Baseball is dumb. And the Marlins' former general manager, now manager, Dan Jennings has just reiterated that for us all. On Wednesday night, the Marlins earned a 5-3 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks behind a dominant performance from the usually dominant Jose Fernandez. But Fernandez had a miscue in the bottom of the sixth when he accidentally beaned Arizona's David Peralta in the head with a 97-mph fastball. Fernandez's reaction after hitting Peralta showed obvious concern. It was a mistake. The pitch got away from him.

But the Diamondbacks, who are notorious for hitting batters as some sort of act of vengeance, didn't care that Fernandez made a mistake. They barked at the Marlins pitcher from the dugout and made it known that they were unhappy about the complete and total mistake by Fernandez. So, in the top of the seventh, Arizona pitcher Dominic Leone intentionally threw a pitch at Marlins batter Christian Yelich in retaliation. Because baseball players and managers are perpetual 8-year-olds. 


It was clearly a terrible thing to do on the Diamondbacks' part.

But here's the worst part: Marlins manager Jennings defended the Diamondbacks' retaliation in keeping up with baseball's ridiculous and arbitrary "unwritten rules" thing.

"The Diamondbacks handled it the right way," Jennings said per MLB.com. "It's part of baseball. They hit Yelly in a spot that sent the message; that's part of the game."

Baseball, which is quietly slipping into the ether and challenging hockey as the least popular pro sport in America, has certain "unwritten rules" that are a "part of baseball," and apparently one of those rules is to throw a very hard ball at another player for no other reason than some sort of act of revenge — even if the player getting hit had nothing to with the original play in question. And even if the original play in question was an accident. It's all good, because it's part of baseball.

This is a sport America loves to raise its children with.

The Marlins are already a complete and total embarrassment, so this is really par for the course with this club. Jennings — who has zero managerial or baseball experience at the professional level of any kind — just endeared himself to the fan base and his own players by defending the Diamondbacks' ridiculous retaliation.

This from a team that leads all of baseball in most embarrassing moments.

Baseball is dumb. Dan Jennings is dumb. And the Marlins are a raging dumpster fire. 

Also, screw Jeffrey Loria. Just because.