ST. LOUIS ¨C A dying clock and the fear of striking out caused a panicked Willson Contreras to do something that he instantly regretted in the bottom of the third inning of the Cardinals¡¯ 5-1 win over the Twins on Saturday.
After noticing the grip tape unravelling near the knob of his bat before a 3-2 pitch, Contreras used his teeth to unroll it and tear it off. Because he had already used his one allowable timeout and the pitch timer was at 11 seconds ¨C and he needed to be in the box and alert with eight seconds remaining or risk an automatic strike call ¨C Contreras hurriedly wadded up the tape and put it in his mouth instead of his back pocket.
Instantly, the slugger knew that was a bad decision ¨C and it had nothing to do with him swinging and missing at the next pitch for a strikeout.
¡°That was a bad taste, really bad,¡± Contreras said with a laugh. ¡°I don¡¯t try to put [pine tar or sticky spray] on my [bat], but it was disgusting. It was a bad taste.¡±
Contreras said it was the first time ¨C and hopefully the last time ¨C that he ever puts bat tape in his mouth. What made the moment even worse, he said, was the result of the at-bat. The whole experience ultimately left a bad taste in his mouth.
¡°With this clock, you have to do things that are out of your control, and I had to do that instead of striking out,¡± Contreras said. ¡°Well, I struck out anyways, but I¡¯d rather strike out swinging rather than by the clock.
¡°I don¡¯t think [chewing the tape] was a bad thing to do, but I was just running out of time. I had no time.¡±
Contreras, who was the Cardinals' top hitter in Spring Training, is hitless in nine at-bats with five strikeouts in the first two games of the season. He shuddered to think what might have happened had the at-bat gone differently when he was chewing on the unsavory tape.
¡°Oh man, if I hit a homer on that, I¡¯m doing it every time,¡± Contreras joked. ¡°I didn¡¯t even know that it was on TV, and I had totally forgotten about it. I was literally watching the clock ¡ 11, 10 seconds and I was like, ¡®Bro, get ready to hit!¡¯ That¡¯s what happened.¡±