Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly has been suspended 8 games for “intentional throwing” at Houston Astros batters. This led to the benches momentarily clearing on Tuesday night. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was suspended for the final game of the series, and Astros manager Dusty Baker was fined an undisclosed amount as well.

Kelly came on to pitch in the bottom of the 6th, with the Dodgers ahead 5-2. He fell behind 3-0 on the leadoff batter, Alex Bregman, and threw a fastball behind Bregman’s head, and to the backstop. Kelly then threw over to first base three consecutive times before throwing a pitch to the next batter. He later struck out Carlos Correa to end the inning, and taunted him on his way off the mound. The latter incident led to the benches clearing for a short moment, though it did not escalate much. No players were ejected from the game at the time.

Kelly is appealing his suspension, so he is currently still eligible to play. An 8-game suspension within a 60-game season is 13.3% of the entire schedule. In 2017, Kelly was suspended 6 games for intentionally hitting Tyler Austin, and fighting him after Austin charged the mound. That was just 3.7% of the schedule in the full 162-game season.

In issuing this suspension, league commissioner Rob Manfred continues to botch his handling of the Astros cheating scandal. Only one player in league history has been suspended for more than 8 games for “intentional throwing” (Ian Kennedy, 10 games in 2013). That suspension only caused Kennedy to miss 6.2% of the schedule. This makes the suspension to Kelly the most significant suspension in MLB history for throwing at a player. It also will mean he has been suspended 8 more games than any player involved in the Astros cheating scandal.

Manfred had a chance to end the issue before it began. By punishing the Astros players, he would be removing the need for “mob justice”, so to speak. Players around the league are upset at the lack of punishment and accountability, and as we saw on Tuesday, are willing to take it into their own hands to police things. This was reflected around social media, as players came to the defense of Joe Kelly.

“MLB siding with/protecting a team that knowingly cheated their way to a World Series,” tweeted Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman. “He doesn’t deserve to be suspended at all. Hope he wins his appeal.”

Indians pitcher Mike Clevinger was also vocal, tweeting that he was “just as lost as all of you at home.”