This just in: Suspending starting pitchers in Major League Baseball is a joke. It's long been a problem and it continues to be.

The latest example is Ubaldo Jimenez of the Indians. After pretty clearly intentionally lighting up former teammate Troy Tulowitzki -- with whom there is some bad blood -- in an exhibition game, Jimenez was given a five-game suspension. He's appealed the suspension and will start Saturday against the Blue Jays. But then he'll just drop the suspension and move his next start back one day.

"We're probably going to have to take advantage of the day off coming up,'' Indians manager Manny Acta said (Cleveland.com). "That way, we'll just push him (back) a day.''

So Jimenez is going to start two consecutive Saturdays and then be back on a five-day plan the rest of the way.

Sorry, but ... how is that a punishment?

We're talking about a player who basically tried to injure another player during a meaningless (spring training) game, seemingly based upon a personal grudge. And the deterrent to prevent this behavior in the future is to cause him to move back a scheduled start one day?

Jimenez hits Tulowitzki
This is nothing new. A while back, MLB appears to have decided the equivalent to one-game suspension for position players/relievers would be five games for starting pitchers. Only it doesn't really make sense, since you can push a starter back one day. Maybe the league should look into seven-game or eight-game suspensions of starting pitchers? Then it would be akin to missing an entire turn in the rotation, which seems equal to a position player missing one game.

As things currently stand, an American League pitcher -- who rarely has to dig into the batter's box, by the way -- is armed with a weapon he can use any time he chooses. And the punishment for trying to intentionally injure someone in a game that doesn't mean anything is evidently a little slap on the wrist.

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