Well, this is certainly something. The Astros Yuli Gurrel will be suspended for five games to start the 2018 season after cameras caught him making a racist gesture referencing Dodgers pitcher Yu Darvish.
In a more just world, those actions would have been rewarded with nothing but abject on-field failure for Gurriel for the remainder of the series, but of course, that’s not the world we live in.
Here he is taking Kershaw deep over the Crawford Boxes at Minute Maid to tie the game in the fourth-inning:
Sigh.
This is also unfortunate as it’s going to continue to reinforce the “Clayton Kershaw can’t pitch in the postseason” narrative, which is extra annoying, despite stats like this:
Clayton Kershaw has given up an MLB-record 8 home runs this postseason
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) October 30, 2017
While that’s a lot of bombs to allow, Kershaw is also throwing a juiced baseball that’s also apparently too slick to even throw a decent slider.
Gurriel, to perhaps his credit (although there’s no guarantee of that and he doesn’t exactly deserve any kudos here), seemed to realize the oddity of the moment:
Whatevs pic.twitter.com/l2pXil1EvP
— Eric Edholm (@Eric_Edholm) October 30, 2017
