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LOS ANGELES - Manny Ramirez couldn't take it, racing in from left field. Here was Shane Victorino mouthing off after a pitch flew just over the back of his head. It was easy to read the thoughts of the Dodgers slugger. He's ticked? Where's he been all series? Hadn't he watched his own pitchers?
Nobody doubted the message sent by Dodgers starter Hiroki Kuroda on that pitch to Victorino.
Victorino screamed at Kuroda. He pointed to his head, and pointed at his body. Body, all right . . . head, let's go!
"Just hit me somewhere, just don't hit me in the head," Victorino said after the game.
"We wanted to send a message," Ramirez said. "I was mad at myself because of the thing that happened at Philly. We should have done that while we were there."
"I think it's all over."
It was a direct response to those Brett Myers pitches that knocked down Russell Martin and went behind Manny Ramirez in Game 2. The Dodgers didn't quite buy Myers' time-honored postgame explanation that the pitch behind Ramirez had merely slipped.
"I was surprised they threw at Shane and not at [Ryan] Howard or [Chase] Utley," Myers said. "The ball I threw [Friday] almost hit Manny. It's part of baseball, but you don't head-hunt, you don't try to put soembody out of the game or hurt them for the rest of their life. The head's no good. Those helmets are protection but not 100 percent protection."
"He was going to get somebody hurt. It was absolutely ridiculous; you've got to do something about that stuff," Dodgers first base coach Mariano Duncan, the former Phillie, had told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday. "Teammates have to protect each other. Coaches can't do it. It has to be teammates."
His feelings didn't change last night. When Phillies starter Jamie Moyer couldn't get anybody out last night in the first inning, he did manage to hit Martin in the knee.
You kept expecting brushback retaliations from Dodgers pitchers. Instead, Clay Condrey replaced Moyer and immediately issued a brushback. The next inning was when Kuroda responded.
"It wasn't at his head; it was over his head," Martin said. The catcher also said Kuroda "did it on his own."
Earlier, on the Fox telecast, Dodgers manager Joe Torre said: "We know the game polices itself."
"There's no place in baseball for that," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said.
All of a sudden, Larry Bowa and Davey Lopes weren't yukking it up about the old days but screaming and cursing and pointing fingers at each other, a surreal scene since the two franchise icons had switched sides. There were no punches thrown, but the dugouts and bullpens emptied. Ramirez looked the most upset.
"It's all part of the game," Lopes said. Somebody asked if he'd had words with Duncan. "Looks are deceiving," Lopes said. "There's nothing to talk about. Did anything happen? I didn't see anything happen. Nothing happened."
at 215-854-4489 or mjensen@phillynews.com.
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