The Chicago Cubs are pulling back, and will not officially file a protest of Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the Washington Nationals.
Cubs manager Joe Maddon argued about Nationals’ closer Sean Doolittle’s toe tap in his pitch delivery. Maddon interrupted the ninth inning of Saturday’s game twice. Umpires convened and had a video review after the second interruption. However, they ruled Doolittle did nothing illegal.
At that time Maddon told umpires the Cubs were protesting the game. After talking to Joe Torre, MLB’s rules and discipline executive, Maddon decided not to officially file a protest of the game.
Maddon contended that he was protecting his pitcher Carl Edwards, Jr., who he felt did a similar move and was previously warned about, per Gordon Wittenmeyer of the Chicago Sun-Times.
âWe went through the whole process [Sunday]; our guys in the office spoke to MLB and I talked to Mr. Torre,â Maddon said of Joe Torre, baseballâs lead rules and discipline executive. âThe whole thing I wanted to get done was to protect Carl.
âI really didnât anticipate a whole lot to be done with it even though I still donât agree with the conclusion because I think it is exactly what Carl did, only a different version of it,â he added. âBut the point was I would not be a good parent had I not spoken up for my guy.â
Crew Chief Sam Holbrook explained that Edwards’ move is different, and that the crew did not deem Doolittle’s illegal.
“(Maddon) thought he was tapping his foot, which in itself is not illegal, and this all kind of stems from his pitcher being called on something that was a little bit different than what Doolittle was doing,” Holbrook explained per Jesse Rogers of ESPN. “So in our judgment, Doolittle did nothing illegal at all.”
Davey Martinez stated that he hadn’t been approached the Nationals about Doolittle’s delivery.
Doolittle was unfazed by what he essentially described as gamesmanship from Maddon. The two teams will conclude their three-game series Sunday evening.
