Neal Huntington Responds To Matt Garza Hitting Andrew McCutchen Twice
PITTSBURGH (93-7 The FAN) - With Andrew McCutchen getting beaned not once, but twice Saturday night by Milwaukee Brewers' starter Matt Garza, Pirates General Manager Neal Huntington opened his weekly show talking about whether or not there was intent.
Broadcaster Greg Brown pointed out that Matt Garza has now pitched 163 innings this year, and prior to Saturday night had only hit two batters before hitting McCutchen twice.
"He certainly tried to sell it if he didn't hit him intentionally. He showed that he was upset that he hit him intentionally. We get that you have to pitch inside, we get that there are times where you hit people by accident. A couple two-out hit-by-pitch, reigning MVP in a very meaningful series, that's the hard part is to get inside guys heads," Huntington said.
Huntington also addressed the Brewers' outrage that their pitcher was thrown out and shared the Pirates' perspective on watching their best player get hit again.
"Andrew McCutchen got hit twice with two outs if I'm not mistaken," Huntington said. "That's our best player, and when he keeps getting shots taken at him, something needs to be done about it. You see some of the suspensions when issued by the league and then you see some things where guys have hit Andrew and nothing has happened to them, and it makes you scratch your head. We get that our hit-by-pitch numbers are high, I probably should take a look at this, I can't tell you how many guys we've hit with breaking balls. Yes, our hit-by-pitch numbers are high, and we've had other allude that our hit-by-pitch numbers are high, we hit a lot of guys with breaking balls back foot. It seems like our guys get dotted up with fastballs in the ribs, and those tend to have more intent behind them."
All this being said, Huntington doesn't believe Garza meant to hit McCutchen either time.
"I didn't think Matt Garza hit Cutch on purpose either time," Huntington said. "There's a ton of grey area here."
All that being said, Huntington does outline the issues he has with the way some teams go about throwing at opponents.
"I personally had a bigger issue with, and again I don't want to call the pitcher out, when you throw behind somebody's head and don't get a warning or get ejected. That to me is just foolish because there's pure intent ," Huntington said. "When you run a ball in on somebody, there's at least a grey area. When you throw a ball behind somebody's head, it's just idiotic, it's foolish, and to me, it's kind of a cop out. I didn't really want to hit him, but I wanted to send a warning so I'm going to throw a ball two feet behind his head and show the world that I'm a tough guy. Those are the ones that I have more of a problem with."
Click the audio link below to hear more from Huntington talk about getting revenge, protecting your own and how they have to take their postseason chances into consideration right now.
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