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WBC Notes: Andrew McCutchen Ejected in Team USA Loss

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Team USA lost to Puerto Rico by a 6-5 score on Friday night, sending Puerto Rico to the finals and putting USA in a must win game on Saturday night. In the sixth inning of this contest, Andrew McCutchen was ejected for arguing a third strike call (see photo below). McCutchen seemed to think the second strike call was outside, then after a ball in the dirt, he went down looking on a 1-2 pitch that was low and outside. After a quick exchange of words, he was tossed by the home plate umpire.

McCutchen started in right field and batted lead-off. He grounded out to lead-off the game, then lined out to left field in his second at-bat. The ejection came in his third at-bat.

Josh Harrison made his first start of the WBC and played second base, batting ninth. He flew out to center field in the third inning, then popped up to second base in the fifth. In the seventh inning, he grounded out to third base to end the inning. In the top of the ninth, he came up with two outs and the tying run on third base, but Harrison struck out to end the game.

Team USA takes on the Dominican Republic tonight at 10 PM on MLB network. The winner of that game will advance to the finals and round out the four-team field, where Japan and Netherlands were joined by Puerto Rico tonight. Regardless of what happens Saturday night, half of the four Pirates participating in the WBC will see their tournament end and the other two will play in the final round, which is an elimination round consisting of three games total.

Here is a still shot of the pitch called strike three, which got McCutchen ejected.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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