Another stupid/bad rule change:
Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper exits after taking 96.9 mph pitch to his face against St. Louis Cardinals
After hitting Harper with his first pitch of the inning, Cabrera then hit the next batter, Didi Gregorius, leading to warnings for both benches. Phillies manager Joe Girardi came out of the dugout to complain to plate umpire Chris Segal and got kicked out of the game.
Matt Joyce was a pinch runner for Harper, and Gregorius remained in the game. Cabrera allowed an RBI single to Andrew McCutchen in the next at-bat before being relieved.
Per MLB rules, Cabrera had to face one more hitter to meet the minimum three-batter threshold before Cardinals manager Mike Shildt could pull him.
"[Cabrera] should be thrown out. I understand why they give the warnings, but if a guy hits a guy in the face and a guy in the ribs, with two pitches, he's gotta go, right?" Girardi said. "If you're really protecting players, he's got to go. Just for the safety of the players."
Shildt said he would have pulled Cabrera if he could have.
"It was a tie game. It was right in his spot," Shildt said. "It was completely unfortunate the ball got away from him. Our prayers are with Bryce Harper and we hope he's OK.
"It's a failure of the three-batter minimum. Completely, absolutely no doubt. You're talking about an aggressive young pitcher throwing to one of the superstars of this game. Clearly, he felt terrible. Everybody knows it was completely unintentional.''
Entire article:
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id...er-exits-taking-pitch-face-st-louis-cardinals