During the off day for the Washington Nationals on Monday, it appears as if we finally reached a resolution on the saga that captured a lot of attention during the team's recent 10-game road trip. After a benches-clearing incident in Pittsburgh that saw Jorge López earn an egregious 3-game suspension that was eventually lowered to 2 games with an appeal, it appears he has been vindicated.
While it might not matter much now that the Nationals are finished with their road trip, and righty reliever Jorge López and manager Davey Martinez each served 2 and 1-game suspensions, respectively, for the incident last week, it shows that guys like Andrew McCutchen are worth rooting for.
McCutchen, a long-time Nationals killer who was at the center of the benches-clearing incident last week after he was almost hit by a pitch from López, came out on X with a reply to a tweet posted by Jomboy Media, stating, "It wasn't on purpose," when replying to a breakdown of the incident.
This not only completely validates what I said after the news of the suspension was released last week, but also shows that Andrew McCutchen, who has been a very successful big leaguer for a very long time, knows the difference between a guy who can't find a location and a guy who is trying to drill him with a pitch.
Obviously, for the Pirates fans who were seemingly steadfast in their belief that López would be throwing at hitters with his team mired in a close game in the 7th inning, this is probably a tough pill to swallow, but it just made too much sense for it not to be the case. Despite a bit of a checkered past for actions on the field for López, if you take one look at his numbers, it's easy to see that he's been struggling to find his control this season, after the former All-Star was signed this offseason.
But, to the credit of the Pirates, they obviously got the last laugh as Oneil Cruz blasted a Grand Slam into the seats in right field, and the Pirates ended up getting the victory anyways. The Nationals would go on to lose the series in Pittsburgh by dropping 3/4 games, and then would go on to Colorado, where they would take 2/3 from the current worst team in baseball.
Do you agree with Andrew McCutchen that this was unintentional? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.