Rick Porcello, Chris Sale have mixed feelings about MLB's bat flip debate

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Tim Anderson didn't have the chance to flip any bats against the Boston Red Sox this past weekend.

But would the Red Sox have made a stink if he did? Well ... it depends.

The Boston Globe's Pete Abraham spoke to Sox pitchers Chris Sale and Rick Porcello recently about the issue of bat-flipping in baseball, which Anderson brought to the forefront when his so-called showboating sparked a brawl between the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals in mid-April.

In Sale's mind, baseball's unwritten bat-flipping rule should be enforced on a case-by-case basis.

"I feel if you’re showing positive emotion for your team, that’s great," Sale told Abraham. "Flip your bat all you want. But I think if you’re showing the other guy up — and a pitcher can do that, too — that’s what I would call unsportsmanlike."

Of course, whether hitters cross the line in their "celebrations" is up to the pitcher's interpretation. Anderson may have just been showing emotion after a big home run, but Royals pitcher Brad Keller apparently didn't see it that when he pegged the White Sox slugger later in the game.

That gray area isn't lost on Porcello, who added MLB seems to be giving hitters the benefit of the doubt these days.

"You can say they are guys having fun or guys are showing up the guy on the mound and showing poor sportsmanship," Porcello told Abraham. "There’s no right or wrong answer.

"I guarantee if I walked around the mound and did a whole bunch of [stuff] after I punched a guy out, I’d get a fine after a while.

"Be honest, the game’s not about pitchers anymore. It’s about the ball getting hit over the fence."

Sale and Porcello both insisted the best way to avoid the issue is to throw better pitches. They certainly accomplished that goal over the weekend, helping limit Anderson to just one hit over four games in Boston's series victory.

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