Image courtesy of latimes.com
Pitching inside is part of baseball. As are bean balls.
But there is absolutely no reason for pitches behind hitters on the major league level. There is a fine line between establishing the inner half of the plate and head-hunting. Brett Myers inadvertently crossed that line when he threw behind Manny. Regardless of whether it was intentional or not, it is the responsibility of the pitcher (Chad Billingsley) to make sure it never happens again. If Myer's wants to make Dodgers hitters nervous at the plate, Billingsley has the right to make Phillies hitters just as nervous. Billingsley chose not to.
Unfortunately, Manny wasn't able to man up and call it a dead issue. Instead he chose to call out Billingsley for not man-ing up. It's easy to see why Manny would be upset but there is no reason to be calling out teammates in the NLCS, especially with the Dodgers down 2 games to none. It was a selfish move on Manny's part, but that's nothing new.
In any case, Kuroda took matters into his own hands when he airmailed an 0-2 fastball over Shane Victorino's head. Kuroda could not have handled the situation better. The pitch was completely harmless and everyone knew it except for Victorino. Everyone got the message; especially Victorino--end of story.
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