This could be the silliest item I’ve come across in weeks. Months. This year.

Colby Lewis, the Texas Rangers pitcher, said he “didn’t appreciate” the way Colby Rasmus, the Toronto Blue Jays outfielder, played the game and said he told him so.

What offense did Rasmus commit on Lewis? What felony did he perpetrate on the game?

Bunt with two outs in the ninth inning of a no-hitter? Attempt a steal when his team led 8-0?

Not even.

What Rasmus did apparently is a new crime in the voluminous book of baseball’s “unwritten” laws. One that should be struck down by the court of public opinion.

With two outs and no one on base in the fifth inning in Toronto, with the Blue Jays leading 2-0 (on the way to a 4-1 victory), the Rangers met Rasmus with one of the defensive shifts we are seeing so much these days.

To cut down the chances of the left-hand hitting Rasmus slapping a ball through the right side, the Rangers moved the second baseman halfway to first base, stationed their shortstop behind second base and had their third baseman as close to second as to third.

These are the shifts that are hurting some of the best hitters in the game. Adrian Gonzalez of the Dodgers is one example. He is hitting .251 in part because what was once a single up the middle for the slow and beefy first baseman is now a lot of “6-3s” in the score book.

Anyway, as a fan, I am more annoyed at the shifts. They don’t seem quite fair. Though I am not going to go after a manager for ordering them.

And what is the response to a shift? What can the batter do to even the playing field?

He can bunt the ball down the third-base line.

And that is what Rasmus did.

“You shift on me … I bunt on you. I am not Adrian Gonzalez, and I can get a single out of that.”

Lewis, however, was deeply offended. TV cameras showed him mouthing “swing the bat” while speaking in the direction of Rasmus, standing at first base. “Swing the bat.”

After the game, Lewis said, according to mlb.com:

“I told him I didn’t appreciate it. You’re up by two runs with two outs and you lay down a bunt. I don’t think that’s the way the game should be played.

“I felt like you have a situation where there is two outs, you’re up two runs, you have gotten a hit earlier in the game off me, we are playing the shift, and he laid down a bunt basically simply for average.”

And Lewis wasn’t done. Rasmus’s lack of class was proved when he didn’t try to steal second base. At least in Lewis’s universe.

“He didn’t steal within the first two pitches to put himself in scoring position. That tells me he is solely looking out for himself, and looking out for batting average. And I didn’t appreciate it.”

So, the man is selfish, too.

Hooey!

A pitcher expects a hitter to ignore that empty territory up the third-base line?

Teams never score with a runner on first and two outs?

When a team is up 2-0 in the fifth, they can’t use a baserunner?

It was ridiculous. And Lewis failed to mention the real reason for his whining: ”

In the link to espn.com (once you sit through the commercial) … two former ballplayers, Eduardo Perez and Doug Glanville, said they don’t see the crime in attacking the shift with a bunt.

But Lewis’s reaction seems to suggest pitchers are coming to believe a batter is not allowed to bunt, with two outs and no one on base, despite a shift. (Maybe it’s OK with one out. Or with a runner on first. Lewis didn’t clarify the “rules”.)

Both of the baseball guys expect more arguments and bad feelings, maybe even fights, over the shift — and the response to the shift.

Pitchers already have nearly every advantage in the game. Lewis seems to believe batters must roll over and die. I hope Rasmus bunts on him the next time, too.