McCoy: Reds, Pirates get feisty in showdown series

(Dusty) Baker, a great admirer of McCutchen, put it in great perspective, as he so often does.

“That’s to be expected, what they think, when their best player gets hit,” said Baker. “It wasn’t intentional. We were just pitching him inside and when you pitch inside those things happen. I’d be upset, too, because it hurt.

“He hasn’t done anything to merit us hitting him intentionally except play hard. He just plays hard and has done nothing to merit us hitting him. He doesn’t clown around, he doesn’t show people up, he just plays hard and he plays great.”

When it was mentioned that the Pirates might not care about apologies or explanations, Baker said, “Well, there is nothing I can do about that. I can just tell you my feelings and my reasonings. I’m sorry if they took it that way but there was definitely no intent.”

Baker added one more thought by saying, “You know there isn’t much difference between a ball and a strike on a hit batsman.”

Thanks to Zoltan Barnald.