The Texas Rangers clearly hadn’t forgotten about Jose Bautista’s bat flip in last year’s AL Divisional Series matchup, and they tried to send a message to him late in the final game of their three-game set on Sunday.
In the eighth inning of the game, Rangers pitcher Matt Bush hit Bautista with a pitch, which obviously gave him a free pass to first base. Things just escalated from that point on. When Justin Smoak grounded out to second, Bautista came in hard on Rougned Odor with a slide that caused an errant throw to first (and was later ruled illegal).
Odor wasn’t happy about it, so he threw a flurry of punches at Bautista after shoving him, one of which caught the Jays slugger perfectly in his jaw and knocked his helmet off.
Both benches cleared, but eventually cooler heads prevailed. Still, Bautista, Odor and Josh Donaldson all were ejected, and it’s safe to say these two teams still hate one another.
Here’s the full video, in case you haven’t seen it yet.
The incident that sparked the huge bench-clearing brawl between the #BlueJays & Rangers.
WATCH: https://t.co/CvNAEIyulf
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 15, 2016
Also, suspensions are coming.