The punishments have been doled out for the brawl between the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals, and a total of seven players have been disciplined, with six of those players earning suspensions. Here’s the full damage report.
#WhiteSox: Chris Sale & Jeff Samardzija have received 5-game suspensions (& undisclosed fines) & Tyler Flowers received an undisclosed fine.
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) April 25, 2015
#Royals: Yordano Ventura (7 games), Edinson Volquez (5 games), Kelvin Herrera & Lorenzo Cain (2 games) — in addition to undisclosed fines.
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) April 25, 2015
The only “shocking” suspension is that of Kelvin Herrera, who wasn’t ejected from the game and wasn’t involved in any of the beanball chaos. One would have to imagine that MLB saw something when reviewing the video of the brawl to implicate Herrera. He’s already appealing a five-game suspension for throwing at Brett Lawrie last weekend.
But all in all, the suspensions for Chris Sale, Jeff Samardzija, and Edinson Volquez are largely meaningless. They’ll all appeal, and likely get the suspensions cut to a maximum of four games apiece…meaning none of the trio will miss a start. The two suspensions for Herrera could be troublesome for a Royals team already without closer Greg Holland, and even if Herrera gets each of those suspensions cut, he’ll probably still be down four games – that’s not a good thing.
As for the suspensions of Ventura and Cain, they’ll affect Kansas City in different ways. The Royals are already without outfielder Alex Rios, forcing 29-year old rookie Paulo Orlando into action. Without Cain as well, Jarrod Dyson will likely end up getting some more playing time in center. The loss of Ventura for a max of seven games will result in Kansas City needing to shuffle their rotation a bit, and depending on when his appeal is heard, veteran Chris Young might have to start a game for the Royals.
