Major League Baseball management has fired Shyam Das, the arbitrator who overturned Ryan Braun’s drug suspension in February.

MLB informed Das and the players’ association of its decision last week. Das had been baseball’s permanent arbitrator since 1999, part of what technically is a three-man panel that also includes a representative of management and labor.

“Shyam is the longest-tenured panel chair in our bargaining relationship,” union head Michael Weiner said. “For 13 years, from the beginning to the end of his tenure, he served the parties with professionalism and distinction.”

Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement says the arbitrator can be removed by the players’ association or management at any time with written notice.

“I had the distinct privilege to serve as chair of the MLB-MLBPA arbitration panel for almost 13 years,” Das wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “I have the greatest respect for the representatives of both parties I worked with during that period, and I wish the parties well in their ongoing relationship.”

MLB executive vice president Rob Manfred declined comment, spokesman Pat Courtney said.

The sides will now try to select a successor. If they cannot agree, baseball’s collective bargaining agreement calls for them to ask the American Arbitration Association for a list of “prominent, professional arbitrators.” The sides would then alternate striking names from the list until one remains.

A classic case of MLB taking its toys and going home?

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How’s that for love of the game?

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It must be tough to be a Pirates fan…

David Wright was ready to take one for the team. Terry Collins was not going to let that happen.

So the Mets manager pulled his star third baseman.

“In this game there are unwritten rules and one of the unwritten rules is you hit my guy, I’m hitting your guy. They’re not hitting my guy tonight,” Collins said following the Mets’ 8-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night. “He said, ‘If somebody should be hit, I want it to be me.’ I said it’s not going to be you.”

Wright was set to lead off the bottom of the seventh. One problem: Reliever D.J. Carrasco had just hit NL MVP Ryan Braun a pitch after Rickie Weeks homered.

Carrasco was immediately ejected by plate umpire Gary Darling.

“I didn’t like it. I don’t understand it,” Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said.

Collins knew what might happen next and he pinch hit for Wright. The star slugger had two of the Mets’ five hits off Zack Greinke (4-1), a double and a broken-bat single in the fourth inning — a shard of wood whirling past the pitcher.

Wright and Collins had a heated discussion in the dugout over whether he would bat.

“Terry is the manager, and I’ve got all the respect in the world for Terry,” Wright said. “Whether I agree with it or disagree with it, I respect him. I love playing for him. I’ve got all the respect in the world for Terry specifically. You get caught up in the moment.”

Wright didn’t intend to become so animated, where others could see.

“I probably should have picked a better spot for it, but in the heat of the moment I got my stuff on and Terry kind of got me at a moment where I was upset with the situation and got me at a moment that I was pretty hot,” Wright said. “It wasn’t directed at Terry at all.”

Braun, who had a pink welt on his left triceps, understood both sides of the argument.

“I respect the fact that he wanted to stay in the game,” Braun said. “I don’t fault them for making that decision at all.”

Wright had an interesting response when asked about Carrasco’s beanball, and added he wasn’t surprised when the pitcher was ejected.

“I’m not sure why (Braun) got hit,” Wright said. “I don’t know. I’m not sure if you talked to D.J. yet, but I’m not sure what the purpose was behind that.”

I guess your opinion on this depends on what  you think of the player? 

I’m a Yankees fan.  If Joe Girardi did this with A-Rod, then I would probably say that he was babying Rodriguez.  But, if he did it with someone like Brett Gardner, with it being late in a blowout loss, then I would probably say that I was OK with it – him protecting the player.  Is that inconsistent?  Hey, I’m just being honest here.  Call it what you want…

In any event, it does send a message to the team, in a way.  Suppose, later in the season, the same thing happens – and, then, coming up to bat for the Mets is someone other than Wright…and Collins decides to let him bat and then he gets wacked with a pitch.  How do you think that Mets player is going to feel then…as loved and respected in Metsville as Wright?  I don’t think so…

The roster of professional baseball players who either suffered or are still sidelined by oblique or core muscle strains suffered in spring training or early in the regular season could fill two starting lineups.

And the obliques, a broad, flat band of muscle that connects to the pelvis and helps to rotate the hips, have claimed some high-profile players including Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Corey Hart and San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson.

According to research by Stan Conte, head trainer for the Los Angeles Dodgers who had three players affected by the injury this spring, 14 players have gone on the disabled list with core or oblique injuries this season.

“One theory I have is that players are transferring more quickly from the offseason to spring training games and to more competitive regular-season games, and the muscles aren’t holding up to the increased strain and force the players are putting on them in competition,” Conte told The New York Times.

The oblique problems are not isolated to players swinging a bat. After all, Hart injured his oblique in a throwing drill.

Washington Nationals team physician Dr. Bruce Thomas of Melbourne, Fla., who also has worked with Olympic and collegiate athletes, attributes the injuries to several factors.

“You’re sure to see it early in the year quite a bit,” said Thomas . “You see it a lot too with guys coming off other injuries, they’re just resuming play. Cooler weather, a lot of times when guys go north we’ll see sort of a rash of obliques when they go from spring training … it’s quite a bit cooler.

“You’ve got a violent acceleration rotational force and the obliques on the one side will sort of help get that motion going. On the other side, you’re the brakes. What winds up happening almost universally the brakes get a little tear, or a little a strain, a pull, whatever you want to call it, a stretch.

“It happens with throwing and batting.”

What makes the injuries so vital in baseball is they involve the one area of the body a player must have in working order to function.

“Virtually everything you do on a baseball field involves trunk rotation,” Thomas said. “What’s happening is that’s where it initiates and where it stops. They (obliques) are sort of like the pulley system. They move the whole torso. I tell the guys right away: ‘No. 1 is it’s going to be a long time. No. 2, you’re not going to get much sympathy. It’s not like you have a cast on your arm. You’re walking around, you can do 90 percent of things just fine but the things you can’t do without pain are the things you need to do which is high-speed acceleration and de-acceleration of the rotation of your trunk.’ “

And while today’s baseball players arrive for spring training fit and believing they are ready to play, just the fact that they are in shape might be betraying them in the end.

“Guys are, in general, bigger and stronger and it’s just more force against the same old bony structure,” Thomas said. “So those muscles are going to peel off or pull in the mid portion of the muscle.”

Rehabilitating an oblique injury through rest, various forms of therapy such as ultrasound, ice and stimulation, and later strengthening, takes time and care since the consequences of coming back too soon can be costly.

“They’re generally pretty frustrating,” Thomas said. “I can think of some pitchers in the past with these early in the season and they didn’t really get them back for six, eight, 10 weeks. Sometimes it’s one of the things where more is not better and if you try to come back fast you wind up missing a lot more time.”

Jeff Tam, who appeared in 251 Major League games over six seasons as a right-handed pitcher, knows that first hand.

“If it’s not 100 percent healed, you’re going to do it again for sure,” said Tam, who suffered three oblique injuries while pitching for the New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays and Oakland A’s.

Throw another rib on the barbie today.

The Dodgers are honoring legend Orel Hershiser on Tuesday night.

The team will be giving away bobbleheads in the likeness of the former Dodgers right-hander, and he will throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Hershiser apparently asked D-backs manager Kirk Gibson, who was a teammate of Hershiser’s on the 1988 World Series-winning Dodgers, to catch the pitch.

Gibson, who hit the game-winning homer in Game 1 of the World Series, said he politely declined.

“I’m a Diamondback,” Gibson said. “I’m the manager of the team. I respect Orel tremendously. He knows that. It’s not disrespect towards him. If I was out of baseball I would have done it, but I’m in baseball and I’ve got different colors on tonight and tomorrow.”

The Dodgers will honor Gibson on July 31 with a Gibson bobblehead giveaway. The D-backs are scheduled to be in Los Angeles to play the Dodgers that night.