Protest of June 17th game formally denied

As expected, Fredi Gonzalez's formal protest of the Atlanta Braves 6-2 loss to the Texas Rangers on June 17th has been formally denied.

The protest was based around two plays, one coming in the 5th inning and one coming in the 9th inning. Gonzalez was also said to have protested the batting order the Rangers sent out as well.

First, in the fifth inning, with Elvis Andrus on 2nd and nobody out, Josh Hamilton did not bunt. Fredi immediately protested the play from the dugout, yelling at home plate umpire Larry Vanover "Larry, you know as well as I do he has to bunt the runner over there." Making matters worse Hamilton then singled Andrus in, which enraged Fredi even more. Asked about the play after the game, Gonzalez said "well, it was clearly illegal, we know that with a man on 2nd and no outs you have to move the runner over. I know those guys are used to playing in the American League, and maybe their rules are different, but that's not how the game works here, this is a National League Park, am I right? I was about to take my normal 5th inning nap and just barely caught it, but boy was I angry."

Later in the ninth inning the Rangers held a 4 run lead to open the frame. At that point the Rangers brought in Neftali Feliz. At that juncture Fredi is said to have gone ballistic and was nearly thrown out of the game for yelling expletives at both the Rangers and umpires. Gonzalez said later "At that point they had to be just taunting the rule book, in my years of baseball, I've never seen such clear disregard for the game. I read an article on Bleacher Report saying that Feliz was their closer. That was clearly not a save situation, I know the math on that can be hard, but I asked like 5 people in the first row, just to be sure, and they all said it wasn't a save situation. And after the game the little "S" didn't show up next to Feliz's name, so I know it wasn't. Just a blatant disregard of the rules of the game."

Finally, as the Braves skipper was looking up at the scoreboard to see if the little "S" would pop up next to Feliz's name, he noticed something fishy. From watching some of the game he had clearly seen that Elvis Andrus was faster than Ian Kinsler. Yet Kinsler batted leadoff while Andrus batted in the second spot. "That was the last straw there" the manager said "I mean are they trying to deny that Andrus is the faster of those two players? They were definitely trying to pull a fast one over us, but luckily I caught it at the end of the game." Fredi continued "I know these protests don't go anywhere most of the time, I protested a game last year where the opposition batted a third baseman second, and that was denied. But this was three terrible, blatant instances of a complete disregard for the rule book. They can't just let this go unpunished."

When the letter finally arrived announcing that the Braves' petition had been denied the manager and coaches were engaged in a friendly game of "guess whose OBP is higher" where nobody had gotten the correct answer in 6 rounds, since Terry Pendleton correctly guessed that Brian McCann's OBP was higher than Tim Hudson's, though Fredi said "man, it seems like it feels like a lot closer than the numbers say." The coaches seemed unsurprised at the result of the letter, most admitting to not remembering the game at all anyway. Pitching coach Roger McDowell noting "hell, I've probably drank 36 handles of Jim Beam since then and beat up four gays, how the hell am I supposed to remember that kind of shit?"

Fredi read the letter aloud: "Attention Atlanta Braves Organization, your petition of the June 17th Game versus the Texas Rangers has been formally denied. Are you trying to troll us with this crap?"