NEWSLETTER
Between the bottom of the 8th inning last night, and then the top of the 9th, some kind of extracurriculars happened between the Cubs and Reds.
What we could see on the outside was Rowan Wick saying something to Joey Votto after an 8th inning walk, Votto getting awfully angry in response, Hunter Strickland maybe intentionally hitting Patrick Wisdom in the 9th, and then David Ross being ejected for having a problem with the HBP:
Cubs reliever Rowan Wick throws up and in on Joey Votto then yells at him after walking him on four pitches
Then Reds reliever Hunter Strickland hits Patrick Wisdom and Chicago manager David Ross gets ejected pic.twitter.com/ImaZGPA7FR
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 26, 2022
But what actually HAPPENED there? Best you can tell in the video was that Wick was frustrated about the walk, and maybe didn’t like Votto’s bat flip (which, come on, Votto did nothing wrong with that flip). So Wick reacted in the moment and said something he probably shouldn’t have. And then Votto, who I like, way overreacted in carrying on at first base, with the Cubs’ dugout taking issue. I particularly loved Marcus Stroman’s “wut?” chuckling reaction to Votto.
Then you had the Strickland part, which, with one out in a two-run game … I’m not sure that was actually intentional. Could’ve been. I might even go so far as to say “probably”? But not as crystal clear as other times we’ve seen.
After the game, here’s how Wick explained what happened (NBC): “All I said was nice bat flip. I understand he’s been in the league a long time, and he can do whatever he wants when he walks. On my side, I was not happy at all with the pitches that I threw, so I let the emotions get the best of me. I got a little frustrated. But I felt like he kind of blew it out of the water a little more than it needed to me.”
That’s more or less how it looked: Wick was pissed in the moment about the walk, that frustration comes out directed at Votto (it kinda looked like he said, “nice bat flip m–f–r”), and Votto reacts in the moment, too.
For his part, Votto played it down.
“He had something to say and I answered,” Votto said after the game, per NBC. “That’s how ball is sometimes …. If someone says something to me, sometimes I don’t answer, but I wasn’t in the mood to keep my mouth shut. It’s part of the game. It can be one of the more enjoyable parts of the game, you know, competing, some talk. Generally speaking, I enjoy that part as long as the other party is fine with taking it. You give it to me, no problem; I’ll f—ing give it back, you know.”
As for the Ross ejection, he explained after the game that his primary point of frustration with the umpires was that they wouldn’t even discuss whether Strickland’s pitch was intentional. Some umps were willing to talk about it and others weren’t. Given the context of the preceding inning between Wick and Votto, Ross thought it at least merited a discussion.
In the end, the real reason this never shoulda happened is that Wick and Votto are brothers of the north:
Wick said he's never spoken to Votto before.
"I don't even know if he knows we're both Canadian." https://t.co/v7UmxqIXBc
— Meghan Montemurro (@M_Montemurro) May 26, 2022
