"This is what baseball needs," is often heard when someone is intentionally hit by a pitch, assuming that more aggression and attitude is what will attract more fans. What baseball needs it fans who appreciate the game for how it should be played. If you watch baseball just for the bench-clearing brawls and dirty plays, then you should find another sport to watch. Try UFC fighting. I watch baseball because I appreciate the little things about how it's played. The strategy, the enormous amount of skill it takes to play the sport, and much more. Baseball doesn't need fights to make it entertaining.

On Thursday night, the hottest hitter in baseball right now, Ronald Acuna Jr., was intentionally hit by a pitch thrown from Jose Urena. It was the very first pitch of the game. Many people wonder if it was intentional or not, and even Urena said that it was an accident. But there's too much evidence that points to it being intentional. First of all, the pitch Urena threw was 97.5 MPH, the fastest he's ever thrown to start off a game, and in the 99th percentile in velocity of the pitches he's thrown all season. Another piece of evidence is that Acuna Jr. entered this game having led off three consecutive games with a homer, and had a five-game home run streak. In the month of August, he's led the MLB in OPS (on base plus slugging), home runs, extra base hits, and runs. Another thing to note is that Urena is tied for hitting the most batters in the MLB since last season. So was this pitch that Urena threw intentional? Most likely, yes. The question is, what are the next steps?

Urena has been suspended six games, but that doesn't magically solve the issue of batters getting intentionally hit. First of all, a six-game suspension does pretty much nothing, because teams have a five or six man pitching rotation. That means a pitcher only pitches once every five to six days. A six-game suspension means that Urena is only missing one start. His suspension should be closer to twenty or thirty games, maybe even more, or tied to a specific number of starts.

The number of hit batters is up by 17% since last year. Something MLB could do to reduce hit batters could be that any time a batter is hit, intentional or not, that pitcher is automatically ejected. No questions asked. This rule could be upsetting to some because of course some pitchers accidentally lose control of pitches and hit batters unintentionally. But I think this rule could solve a lot of issues regarding players being hit by pitches and draw the line on what's acceptable and what's not. What do you think?