The unwritten rules of baseball are generally pretty stupid things. The good ideas got written down. Think of the unwritten rules of baseball as the things that Dan Brown wasn't willing to cram into The Da Vinci Code. Fake moon landings. Lincoln's secretary being named Kennedy, and Kennedy's secretary being named Lincoln. That's the crap he wasn't willing to put in there.

On Tuesday, there were some unwritten rules that were broken, and that meant unwritten rules needed to be enforced. Rickie Weeks hit a home run with a 7-0 lead, which is just gauche and unsightly. Even worse, watch him stand in the box and admire it:

Well, you could tell he wanted to admire it. And because of that, D.J. Carrasco had to take action! He had to send a message!

Wait, no. That looks like a tailing fastball that got away from Carrasco, who was pitching in his third inning of the year. I mean, there's no way to tell for sure, but seeing as Weeks didn't do anything wrong, it's unlikely that Carrasco meant to do anything but go inside with a pitch.

According to the unwritten rules, though, it doesn't matter. They hit your star player, you hit their star player. It's right there, not in black and white. Intent doesn't really matter -- though the umpire tossing Carrasco out could have given credence to a purpose-pitch conspiracy theory -- it's about protecting your players. If you don't wing one at their star player, they're going to keep coming inside and inside on your star player, eventually putting him in the disabled list with a broken hand.

That's the theory, anyway. Though I'd wager that if the Brewers didn't hit the Mets' star player in retaliation, the world would have kept spinning. The next time Ryan Braun hit against the Mets, they would have pitched him the same damned way they were going to pitch him the first place. They wouldn't have figured Braun for an easy mark who would simper and turn away at inside pitches for the rest of his career. Just a guess.

So Weeks didn't do anything wrong, and Carrasco (probably) didn't do anything wrong, but now because of the unwritten rules, one player has been ejected and another has to get hit. The star player, preferably. And, say, is that David Wright leading off the very next inning? Welp, hope it doesn't hit him in the head and give him another concussion.

Except that's when Terry Collins tinkled on the book of unwritten rules. It was glorious. In a blowout game, Collins said "to hell with this" and pulled Wright for a pinch-hitter. Wright was furious!

Wright: They're gonna think I'm yella!

Collins: Don't want you hurt.

Wright: They're gonna think I'm yella!

Collins: Don't want you hurt.

Wright: They're gonna think I'm yella!

Collins: Look at this newspaper. Look at it. Do you see this number? Do you see how that number is bigger than this number? That's because the Mets have won more games than they've lost. I'm not going to screw that up because of some unwritten rules. I mean, look at that guy out there. I don't trust him to hit you in the butt. He looks unstable.

Greinke:

You can't blame Wright for being upset, either. He wants to be a team leader and play the game the right way.

Weeks isn't wrong. Carrasco isn't wrong. Braun isn't wrong. Wright isn't wrong. No one's done anything wrong. But someone had to get hit in the ass with a spherical object because of unwritten rules. And while no one was wrong, Terry Collins was the only one who was thinking. And he thought it would be pretty awful to lose Wright to an injury when the Mets finally had something going for them.

The unwritten rules can be dippy things. But every once in a while, a manager thinks for himself. Here's to Terry Collins for not buying into what the unwritten rules were selling.