Andrew McCutchen had a complaint on Saturday after being hit by a pitch during his Milwaukee Brewers’ 9-0 loss to the Chicago Cubs earlier in the day.
Three Cubs players were hit by a pitch during the first seven innings. The last Cubs player to get hit was Ian Happ, who got hit in the knee in the bottom of the seventh. So when the top of the 8th began, Keegan Thompson got Mike Brosseau and Victor Caratini out. Then came McCutchen.
Thompson threw a cutter away and then three straight fastballs in, the last of which hit McCutchen, who was not happy. McCutchen stared down Thompson and had some messages for the Cubs.
Andrew McCutchen gets plunked and benches clear at Wrigley Field pic.twitter.com/wn2mLVVcRB
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) April 9, 2022
The benches cleared and Thompson was ejected from the game.
The Cubs later hit Christian Yelich with a pitch in the 9th before the game ended.
After the game, McCutchen voiced his issue. The 35-year-old said he was bothered with the way in which Thompson went about hitting him. He said he would have preferred the Cubs not to mess around and pretend like they were pitching to him, and to instead just throw at him with the first pitch.
“Everybody and their mom knew when I came up to bat, I was gonna get hit,” McCutchen said. But by throwing a first-pitch slider away for a strike and then coming back in to drill him, Keegan Thompson did it the wrong way, McCutchen argued. Here is his case. pic.twitter.com/FmGFCNIZzQ
— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) April 9, 2022
“If he would have hit me right away, I would have went right to first base, would’t have thought much of it. Knew it was coming, cool, wipe my hands clean. So I had to let them know there was a better way to do it,” McCutchen said.
For what it’s worth, Thompson denied throwing at McCutchen intentionally.
Ian Happ said he got hit directly on the left knee cap, but that X-rays came back negative. Keegan Thompson said when he hit McCutchen, he was working on his two-seam and it "got away from me."
— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) April 9, 2022
