The aftermath of what, you may ask?
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Meanwhile, Blue Jays manager said Monday it wasn’t the retribution that bothered him, but the timing. It can’t be any less than five games, whereas Bautista shouldn’t sit out more than two. News stories displayed here appear in our category for Sports and are licensed via a specific agreement between LongIsland.com and The Associated Press, the world’s oldest and largest news organization. “As Bautista readied his own fist, Odor beat him to the draw with a Manny Pacquiao-caliber right hand”.
“I know (Bautista) embarrasses (the Rangers)”.
Beanballs are a popular way to enforce baseball’s code.
The Blue Jays are going to get their share of discipline for the brawl, too.
On the first pitch of the eighth inning, Bush drilled Bautista with a fastball to the shoulder.
And as one might expect, Lebreton sided with the home team in the matter of Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor vs. Bautista. As we know now, he feared correctly. “My only complaint was that if you’ve got an issue with someone, we get that, everyone views things differently, and if you’re going to do something, hey, that’s part of it, we get it”.
At this point, justice had been served.
Upon hammering a no-doubter of a three-run homer that snapped a 3-3 tie and paved the way for Toronto’s 6-3 victory in Game 5 of last year’s ALDS at a raucous Rogers Centre, Bautista admired the blow before emphatically flipping his bat away.
What happened next was something that didn’t need to happen.
That’s what happened with Odor and Bautista.
Bautista’s slide into second was judged to have violated a new rule created to prevent such plays, he was ruled out but then ejected from the game along with Odor, Blue Jays third Baseman Josh Donaldson and several other coaches and players. Following Bautista’s slide, Odor charged and following the shove, immediately slugged the Blue Jays’ outfielder.
There’s blame on both Bautista and Odor on this one, but let’s look at them individually.
As Odor untangled himself after the slide, he sensed a menacing presence from Bautista. But this season the Major League Baseball made rule changes to eliminate these plays (aka the Chase Utley rule).
Odor spoke with reporters prior to the Rangers’ game on Monday and explained what was going through his mind as the fight unfolded. Bat flips, beanballs, and late slides are, whether sportsmanlike or not, an element of baseball. Punches are not an element of baseball. Odor said he doesn’t regret it.
Texas did not retaliate until the seventh meeting between the teams this season. They had two games prior to Sunday in Texas, and did nothing. They didn’t do anything until Bautista’s very last at-bat. Yeah, “cowardly” is a good way to put it, Jose.
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Players from both sides of the field rushed to the field, and Odor and Bautista were ejected from the game along with Toronto’s Josh Donaldson and Texas bench coach Steve Buechele. They did it in a lot of different ways they did it sliding hard into second base; they did it by drilling guys but when it was done, it was always done. Now we’ll have to wait until next season (or potentially this year’s playoffs), to see how the score will be settled next time.
