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 world of his left hand, exited the sport with out a lot of a battle after supervisor Pat Murphy and the coaching employees 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 examine in with the skipper.
“He was in my workplace already eager to play tomorrow,” Murphy mentioned.
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Whereas Contreras is sort of actually not going to catch the sequence finale Sept. 21 with an opportunity to pop champagne, he and the Brewers appear to have prevented potential catastrophe as X-rays had been adverse.
“He’s a bulldog, man,” mentioned Brewers right-hander Chad Patrick. “…He’s the center and soul. He runs the present behind there.”
Within the seventh inning, Contreras was referred to as for catcher’s interference on a swing by Cardinals designated hitter Ivan Herrera. He remained within the sport after a go to from the coaching employees 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 mentioned. “MLB is actually good about understanding what guidelines have come out that we actually want to alter. That one’s going to be robust by way of the way it’s enforced however we obtained to guard the catcher.
“If there’s not a legitimate try to hit the ball and the try is so late that it makes contact with the catcher’s glove…nevertheless 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.