SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. ? A war of words turned ugly today as the Indians' Ubaldo Jimenez hit Rockies' shortstop Troy Tulowitzki in the left elbow with a fastball on the first pitch of his at-bat.
Tulowitzki left the game with the injury, prompting concern that he might not be ready for opening day this Friday in Houston. He was taken to local hospital for precautionary X-rays on his left elbow. Those X-rays were negative, meaning there was no structural damage.
After hitting Tulowitzki in his first at-bat, Jimenez raced toward the plate, motioning with his arms multiple times for Tulowitzki to come toward him. Teammates on both sides quickly got between the players as benches emptied. Tulowitzki exited the game for a pinch-runner. And Jimenez was not ejected, though the Rockies are expected to call the commissioner's office and request a suspension.
After Cleveland initially said Jimenez would not talk about his outing, the pitcher did speak after the game. Jimenez said he didn't intentionally hit Tulowitzki.
"He is one of the best hitters in the game. I tried to get inside on him. It was a pitch taht got away. That happens in about a thousand games," Jimenez said.
He added:
"The thing that got started was, he was calling me out (from the batters box). I mean, I'm a man. If somebody calls me out, I have to go. He was calling me chicken. He was calling me names," Jimenez said.
Losing Tulowitzki to the disabled list would be a potentially crippling blow for the Rockies. He's finished in the Top-10 in the MVP three times and has won back-to-back Gold Gloves. There was no update on his condition through the fourth inning.
Typically following a spring training game, the starting pitcher meets with the press after he finishes pitching.
Jimenez has expressed his anger toward the Rockies this spring, admitting that he felt underappreciated last season because he was not awarded a contract extension like Tulowitzki (seven years, $134.5 million) and Carlos Gonzalez (seven years, $80 milllion). He told CBS Sportsline a few weeks ago that being in Cleveland was like "heaven."
Tulowitzki responded in The Denver Post 10 days ago, saying, "If someone doesn't want to be here we always say, 'Please, go up to the manager and tell him you want to leave or that you don't think this is the best place for you.' That was kind of the case with him."
Saturday night, Rockies manager Jim Tracy discussed the bad blood between Jimenez and the Rockies, saying he hoped the issue would just fade away.
"Go back to 2007, go back to 2009 and go back to the first half of 2010, there were some special days out there on the field with him on the mound," Tracy said. "I just really wish that all the other stuff. ... Let's get that put to bed, because it's not doing anybody any good. It was over and done with at the end of July last year. Everybody needs to move on."
The Rockies nosedived out of contention last May as Jimenez struggled with injuries and command. He went on the disabled list with a thumb cuticle problem in April, and didn't win his first game of the season until the end of May. Late that month, general manager Dan O'Dowd questioned Jimenez's desire and told him if that he wanted to get a new deal or be traded that he would have to perform better.
"There were too many things last year. There were people saying I probably wasn't ready because of the contract (because he went to Europe for two weeks before spring training and didn't pitch in winterball). ... But I know what I did. I know how hard I worked to get ready every single day," Jimenez said.
The Rockies, feeling that Jimenez was trending downward and had lost the respect of several teammates, traded the right-handed ace to Cleveland for four players, including pitchers Drew Pomeranz and Alex White.
Tulowitzki was incensed when Jimenez criticized the Rockies this spring, believing he should have addressed the matter in-house when he was still with the team.
"For him to come out and badmouth an organization that I have a lot of respect for and take a lot of pride in being here, yeah, you are going to be upset. You don't spend the portion of your career with a team then the next year come out and say something," Tulowitzki told The Post. "I would have addressed my teammates directly (last year) and handled it from there because we were all wondering what was going on."
"Without a doubt we asked him what was going on. It never came up that it was his contract. If you can't get something out of someone when you ask them, then what are you going to do?"
Rockies' veteran Jason Giambi was among several teammates who reached out to Jimenez last season. It wasn't just that Jimenez was struggling. He was the team's best pitcher and couldn't win against even marginal opponents, directly affecting the team's psychology.
"I asked him repeatedly if he was hurt. What was wrong. He said it was nothing. So then you start to think a guy is just shutting it down," Giambi told The Post.
