ST. LOUIS — Milwaukee Brewers followers — and, heck, many of the gamers, too — held their collective breaths within the backside of the eighth inning at Busch Stadium on Sept. 20.
Catcher William Contreras, one inning after taking a swing by a St. Louis Cardinals hitter to the realm of his left hand, exited the sport with out a lot of a struggle after supervisor Pat Murphy and the coaching workers emerged from the dugout.
Lower than one hour later, following a thrilling 3-2 win that dropped the Brewers’ magic quantity to win the Nationwide League Central Division to 1, Contreras made a pitstop to test in with the skipper.
“He was in my workplace already desirous to play tomorrow,” Murphy stated.
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Whereas Contreras is sort of definitely not going to catch the collection finale Sept. 21 with an opportunity to pop champagne, he and the Brewers appear to have averted potential catastrophe as X-rays had been unfavourable.
“He’s a bulldog, man,” stated Brewers right-hander Chad Patrick. “…He’s the guts and soul. He runs the present behind there.”
Within the seventh inning, Contreras was known as for catcher’s interference on a swing by Cardinals designated hitter Ivan Herrera. He remained within the recreation after a go to from the coaching workers and a few minutes of making an attempt to shake off the ache.
Contreras, who’s additionally been coping with a fractured finger on the identical hand many of the season, caught two pitches within the eighth from Abner Uribe earlier than taking himself out of the sport.
Murphy expressed some frustration towards the play being deemed intereference regardless of what he perceived to be a late swing from Herrera. The Cardinals designated hitter started his swing, which wound up being a check-swing, round because the ball was nearing the plate.
“The rule’s gotta change,” Murphy stated. “MLB is de facto good about understanding what guidelines have come out that we actually want to vary. That one’s going to be robust when it comes to the way it’s enforced however we obtained to guard the catcher.
“If there’s not a sound try to hit the ball and the try is so late that it makes contact with the catcher’s glove…however it hits the catcher’s glove after the man catches it, that’s not a violation.”
This story was up to date with new info.