Jeff Bennett and Brian McCann swear they didn't mean to hit Alfonso Soriano in the face/hand during the second game of the Braves - Cubs series. Although, after getting the full-on broom treatment in Chicago and McCann getting beaned as well, it would not be surprising to hear them change their tone a little bit.'Obviously we weren't trying to hit Soriano,' McCann said. 'But if they felt like they needed to get back, then we're even now and it's over.'Bennett was shockingly confident too (basically saying he had Soriano K-balled).
'That's the last thing I wanted to do with a guy on second and with two strikes,' Bennett said. 'I mean, you've got him struck out. He always stands over the plate and dives over it a little bit. If you look over his [scouting report], he'll swing at that high fastball. That's what I wanted to do. It didn't work out that way.'What he fails to mention is that he was all over the place all evening; as long as you can classify "all evening" as "hanging around long enough to cough up seven runs in two innings". In other words, it's hard to even remotely classify this as intentional.
The interesting thing is that it feels like the Braves and Cubs are developing a little bit of bad blood (I don't want to use rivalry, lest the in-House Blue Bleeders point out the one-sidedness of it) between the two teams. Or perhaps a tough fought sweep combined with 100 years of frustration are just blending together.
