Josh Beckett's Suspension

Last night on Baseball Tonight, John Kruk went on and on (in that way he does, when he continues to make comments throughout the show about something they already finished talking about) about how unfair Josh Beckett's suspension was. Now, he's a Red Sox so maybe it's just my bias showing, but it seems pretty fair to me. He should have been thrown out of that game, and not just for the throw to Abreu's head, but also for charging at him. When batters charge the mound, they typically get tossed.

Kruk kept going on about how nothing Beckett did caused the rather anti-climactic brew ha-ha, except that... it did. Even if the throw was not aimed at Abreu's head, which I'll admit it probably wasn't, that's where it ended up going AND he was the one who started towards home plate. So how was he not responsible for the dugouts emptying?

He didn't get tossed for any of it, so by giving him a six-game suspension, that's essentially what the powers that be in the MLB are doing: taking a game away from him. In the appeal process it'll probably get dropped to three games so it won't even matter, but the point is that they're making up for the umpire's mistake of not throwing him out of the game.

Also, shouldn't pitchers get suspended for a certain number of appearances, not games? Because suspending a starting pitcher for three games is completely useless. Suspend a position player or a reliever three games, and that's actually doing something. Just another thing to add to my list of things I'll do when I'm commissioner...