Under the Respect is Earned section of the Code, Milwaukee’s Matt Garza picked some bad timing to drill guys during Saturday’s game against Pittsburgh.

Of course, it was only bad timing if he did it by accident. And technically he only hit batter, singular, but did it twice. Because that batter was Andrew McCutchen—not only the brightest star north of the Monongahela, but the guy at the center of enormous controversy last month for a remarkably similar situation—all eyes were on the Brewers right-hander.

In a vacuum, neither episode looked particularly bad. Garza first hit McCutchen in the back with a fastball in the third inning, on a 1-2 count and with two outs and nobody on in a scoreless game. But this was not a vacuum. The Pirates and Milwaukee went at it earlier this season when Pirates starter Gerrit Cole took exception to some extra exuberance by Carlos Gomez following a triple (result: yelling, punches, four suspensions). Last month, McCutchen was hit by a retaliatory pitch from Arizona reliever Randall Delgado, resulting on his first-ever trip to the disabled list. The ingredients were perfect for a combustion.

Pittsburgh’s Edison Volquez offered a response by sending a belt-high pitch inside to Ryan Braun, leading off the following inning. It wasn’t retaliation so much as a caution. We noticed. Don’t let it happen again. Plate ump Marty Foster agreed, taking the pitch as impetus to warn both benches.

The next time McCutchen came up, in the fifth, there were again two outs and nobody on. Again the count was 1-2. Again, Garza drilled him with a fastball, this time on the elbow. The evidence against Garza when it came to inent: He has has always had good control, before Saturday having hit only two batters all year, in 160 innings. The evidence in his favor: He was throwing a shutout and had little point in hitting an opponent a second time, especially after warnings had been issued, not to mention his team’s increasingly desperate bid to make up ground in the National League wild card race. There was also the fact that McCutchen leaned slightly into the pitch, trying to protect the outer part of the plate.

No matter. The pitcher was tossed, starting a parade of six relievers that eventually secured a 1-0 victory. The ejection likely precluded response from the visibly agitated Pirates, and at the very least kept manager Clint Hurdle in the dugout. (“”If he doesn’t get tossed, then I do,” he said in an MLB.com report. “Somebody is going to leave.”)

Afterward, Garza did not hold back his displeasure with the situation.

“If people think I hit McCutchen on purpose, with a 1-2 count in a game like this, then you’re just an idiot, OK?” he said. “Because a game like this, a starter doesn’t go after a guy like that. It’s a [1-2] count and I’m trying to pitch inside. Guy leans in, it hits him on the elbow, that’s my day.”

After the second HBP, McCutchen—who had thrown his helmet down in anger after getting drilled—tried to exact some immediate revenge of the most lasting kind, by stealing second base. He was thrown out to end the inning.

In the end, the fact that both of Garza’s pitches were uninitentional, in addition to the fact that he’d already been disciplined in an official capacity, likely ended things there. On Sunday,

On Sunday, Pittsburgh reliever Tony Watson hit Aramis Ramirez with two outs and one on in the ninth inning of a 1-0 game, a situation that, like both of Garza’s, would have made no sense to do anything on purpose. Outside of an increasingly unlikely playoff meeting, the teams won’t see each other again until next season.