White Sox's Jimmy Cordero, Rick Renteria Suspended for Willson Contreras HBP

Chicago White Sox pitcher Jimmy Cordero has been suspended by Major League Baseball for three games after plunking Chicago Cubs catcher Willson Contreras on Friday, per Jon Heyman of the MLB Network, while manager Rick Renteria received a one-game ban.

Contreras hit a homer in the third inning and flipped his bat high in the air. Cordero hit him with a pitch in the seventh inning, and umpire Dan Bellino and his crew saw it as retaliation.

Cordero was ejected, and when Renteria and pitching coach Don Cooper stormed out of the dugout to protest the call, they were ejected as well. Cordero said after the game that it wasn't intentional.

"It was just a bad pitch, a bad pitch to him," Cordero told reporters. "The ball sinked a lot, and that happened. No, it was not intentional."

Renteria backed up his player.

"The ball got away from him," he said. "He pitched him in and the ball got away."

"I was a little livid because we were sure of how we viewed it, but understandably the umpires have a judgement on that and they did what they did," Renteria added.

Cubs manager David Ross defended Contreras and his celebration, citing a bat flip by a White Sox star last season.

"All the hype is on the guy on the other side when he bat-flipped, right?" he said. "I thought Tim Anderson's bat flip last year where he flipped it and looked in his dugout, that's what you want. That's what Willson did."

Cordero, 28, has had a tough season, going 1-2 in 29 appearances with a 5.61 ERA, 1.52 WHIP and 21 strikeouts in 25.2 innings.

Contreras also homered in the ninth for his seventh of the year. He's hitting .243/.357/.411 with 26 RBI.