You were in for a real surprise if you were tuned into the Milwaukee Brewers' victory over St. Louis on Tuesday night, as closing pitcher Abner Uribe put on a show to close the eighth inning.
The 25-year-old righty struck out Cardinals first baseman Alec Burleson with a pristine slider into the corner of the strike zone. In typical Abner fashion, he pounded his chest and raised a fist to the air, but you knew something more was on the way when he hit a 180 to face the Cardinals' dugout.
That's when he channeled his inner pro wrestler and gestured three crotch chops straight at his opponents. He probably didn't expect the call would immediately be challenged, but thankfully for him and Brewers fans, the strikeout was upheld. Unfortunately, the damage was already done in the eyes of Manager Pat Murphy, who was left in disbelief.
"That's just not how we do things, and I was embarrassed by it. And why are we doing it in a six-nothing game? What are we doing there?" Murphy posited to reporters after the game. "There must be something deeper I don't know about. I love the kid, believe me... There's so much good in this kid. He's been so great for us in so many ways, but that's unacceptable."
As it turns out, Uribe might've had good reason to be upset with the Cardinals. During his postgame media availability, he took accountability and apologized to the Brewers and to the fans for the so-called incident, but also shed light on some new information about why he was upset:
"I understand that it's unacceptable to go out there and react in a way like that, but at the same time, I don't think it's professional for their manager to be making signs towards our dugout saying that he's gonna be hitting guys. And there was an event that happened during practice today, too. I don't think that was right. I have my teammates' backs always."
When it comes to the cross chop, you can really only fall into three camps... you're either offended by it, thought it was funny, or some combination of both. What generation you're from and whether you have children will almost certainly shape your perspective on the situation. So I'm not here to judge or tell you how to feel.
But to me? This was laugh-out-loud hilarious, totally unexpected and in a way, emblematic of what makes Abner Uribe such an incredibly entertaining player to watch.
Abner Uribe wears his heart on his sleeve and most of the time, the Brewers are better off for it.
There was one core acknowledgement both Murphy and Uribe himself made after the game — he's an emotional guy, and we know that he likes to show it on the mound. His strikeout celebrations are a staple of every appearance, with many Brewers fans patiently awaiting whatever antics are next for Milwaukee's leader in saves (5).
This is far from his best start to the season, but Uribe's 4.42 ERA is slightly skewed by the fact that all nine of the runs Uribe has yielded so far were within six of his 20 appearances. He allowed zero earned runs in 14 other outings so far, and is holding his opponents' batting average to .206, which ranks second-best on the Brewers behind Jacob Misiorowski.
In 10 of his 20 appearances, Uribe has held his opponents without a hit while posting an admirable 71.4 save percentage. Despite a few hiccups along the way, he's been a net positive for one of the best bullpen rotations in all of baseball.
If his true intentions behind the taunt were to stick up for his teammates as he says, that's the type of player I want in my corner when I go to battle. These inner-division series get chippy over the course of a season, and this sets the tone that the Brewers won't go down without a fight when someone (allegedly) threatens to hit their players with pitches.
Whether the MLB will fine Uribe is yet to be seen. Since it was already dealt with in the clubhouse, it probably shouldn't warrant any further action, but the league might want to make an example of this situation. Regardless for Brewers fans, it was probably worth taking a little bit of heat for the brand new Uribe Chop GIF alone.
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