Major League Baseball acted quickly to discipline St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Miles Mikolas after his incident with the Chicago Cubs on Thursday night.
Mikolas was suspended for five games for throwing at Cubs outfielder Ian Happ, with Cardinals manager Oli Marmol also getting a one-game suspension. Mikolas intends to appeal his suspension, according to Jesse Rogers of ESPN.
The Cardinals were angered when Happ caught catcher Willson Contreras on a backswing, opening up a gash in Contreras’ head that forced him to leave the game. Mikolas threw up and in on Happ on the first pitch afterward, then hit Happ in the back with the pitch after that, at which point he was ejected.
While MLB is occasionally lenient when it comes to pitchers hitting batters and policing the game, Mikolas blew it by not hitting Happ on the first try. The second pitch left no doubt that he was throwing at Happ intentionally, and at that point, discipline was pretty much inevitable.
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