Buck Showalter May Have Just Given Us The Greatest Stare In Baseball History
It's early in the season, but emotions have been running high between the Mets and the Nationals. Yesterday, benches cleared after Francisco Lindor got hit in the face by Nationals reliever Steve Cishek.
Today, Buck Showalter had enough after Starling Marte was hit on the side with a 76 mph breaking ball. Sometimes saying nothing can mean so much more than saying anything. Buck Showalter gave the ultimate stare down towards the Nationals dugout. Given the way things have gone this weekend between these two teams, I have a hard time believing that there wasn't a little bit of intent behind this pitch. Now, getting hit on the hip is different from getting hit in the face like Lindor did yesterday, but the pièce de résistancee of this moment is Buck Showalter.
I don't know how good the Mets are going to be. I'm inclined to say they will probably find a way to miss the playoffs considering their history and the current injuries in their rotation. Jacob deGrom, following a dominant but injury-riddled season a year ago, can't seem to find the mound right now. Max Scherzer, who, despite making a start yesterday for the Mets, just didn't look like the Max Scherzer that we're used to. But I really want them to succeed because as much as I love analytics, I enjoy old-school managers like Showalter. They make the game more entertaining. Don't get me wrong, he's made plenty of mistakes as a manager (seriously dude, how the hell did you not use Zack Britton in the 2016 wildcard game?) but I love managers who walk around with a level of don't-give-a-fuck-ness that you rarely see in baseball nowadays. Buck is not a manager who will have the lineup card handed to him by the front office every day. He's going to make his own decisions, and while I have severe doubts about the Mets sustainability, I miss the old days in which managers were extensions of their teams. Buck has been around forever, so even though the Mets might not be great, they'll be fun with him in the dugout, and he gave us arguably the first great, meme-worthy moment of the 2022 season.