Cubs News: Maddon on Baez's blocking of sign-stealing: "He has the balls to do it" |
There was plenty of testiness in the series between the Chicago Cubs and the Colorado Rockies, especially in Sunday's 9-7 win for the Cubs.
A shining example of the testiness occurred in the third inning, with the Rockies' DJ LeMahieu on second base. Trailing 6-0, LeMahieu might have been looking to gain an edge for his team, at least in the eyes of Javier Baez. Baez relentlessly blocked LeMahieu's view of home plate after seeming to think that LeMahieu was trying to steal signs from Cubs catcher Victor Caratini. Eventually, the two second basemen got into a heated argument, causing Joe Maddon, Tommy La Stella, and several umpires to attempt to calm Baez down before the situation got out of hand. "Who else would do it?" Maddon said on the Bernstein and McKnight Show on 670 The Score on Tuesday. "Who else would do it?" "Because he has the balls to do it, quite frankly," he said. "I mean, there's a lot of guys who would never do that. I think you're going to see it become more prominent now that he's broken the ice. He said that Simmons did it in the World Baseball Classic. I talked to him yesterday on an off day, and I thought, 'Man, that is really good.' I never thought of it. I'd never thought of it. Actually, when he was doing it the other day, we were yelling at him, 'Get back, get back.' We thought he thought something else was on. But he was just doing what he thought was the right thing in the moment. I love that he's fearless. I love that he's saying, 'Hey, this our team. This is our game. This is how we're going to do it.' At the end of the day, if you're the runner at second base, understand that you're trying to steal signs, we have every right to try to conceal our signs." Baez spoke with the media in the locker room following the team's hard-fought win and was brutally honest about what he saw with the Rockies. "He told me (LeMahieu) they changed the signs," Baez told reporters. "Why you telling me. You telling me to my face that you getting the sign. Come on man. I don't know man. I'm really mad about it. I'm really smart. We won the game. End of series." #Cubs @ #Rockies
Javier Baez and DJ LeMahieu play a game of cat-and-mouse at second as Baez thinks LeMahieu is stealing signs before the two are separated (02:13)
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