St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Willson Contreras has received a hefty suspension from Major League Baseball for his on-field meltdown Monday night.
Contreras was suspended six games for his outburst against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the league announced Tuesday. The first baseman plans to appeal the suspension, and will remain eligible to play while that appeal is heard.
By MLB’s standards, a six-game suspension for an on-field incident is quite severe. It is usually reserved for instances like players charging the mount or getting into fights.
It is easy to see why MLB felt the need to come down hard on Contreras, though. In addition to getting right in the face of umpire Derek Thomas, he threw his bat in anger, which hit Cardinals hitting coach Brant Brown (video here). The whole thing was a bad look for Contreras, who was initially angry at a called strike that appeared to be well within the zone.
Contreras is hitting .261 with 19 home runs and 72 RBIs on the season. The Cardinals are 5.5 games out of the final NL Wild Card spot, so an unlikely pursuit of a playoff appearance would probably be over completely if the first baseman were forced to miss roughly a week’s worth of games.
