Last year when Ryan Depster drilled Alex Rodrigiuez with a pitch, it was a bit of a revival of the nasty bench clearing brawls we saw between Boston and New York back in the early 2000's. However, when the Red Sox and Rays brawled on May 25th and then followed it up with an even rougher game 5 days later, that pegging of A-Rod suddenly looked petty.
The game started with fire. With 2 outs in the first inning, David Ortiz walked to the plate and stood in against former Cy Young winner, David Price. Price proceeded to drill a 95MPH fastball right into the Sox slugger's spine. Immediately, home plate umpire Jeff Kellog emphatically warned Price, the Rays bench as well as the Red Sox bench and Ortiz ferociously stared down Price as he began his trot towards first.
But the fun was not done, even for that inning. As Ortiz finished delivering his death stare to David Price, John Farrell emerged from the dugout and began barking at a crowd of umpired between home plate and the pitcher’s mound. Before Farrell said anything though, he was ejected and we had ourselves yet another vicious baseball game. As the game dragged on though, Price proved that he seemed to be on a mission to turn this baseball game into a dodge-ball game. With 2 outs in the 4th inning, Price pegged Mike Carp with another 90MPH+ fastball and drew both teams out of their dugouts. Immediately, David Ortiz jumped into the scrum and began screaming and shoving Jose Molina in an attempt to get at Price. Also erupting during the fight was Rays bench-warmer Sean Rodriguez who despite being on the other side of the pile than the Red Sox was absolutely fuming. And yet as the umpires convened again, Price was not tossed. Acting manager Torey Lovullo however came out, got ejected after he spiked his cap and then started screaming at the officials of this game. Probably for good reason, the Red Sox got absolutely whacked by the umpires Friday night in Boston and nobody was happy.
But anyway, with Lovullo gone, the Sox moved on to their 3rd manager of the night: Brian Butterfeild. Miraculously, we made it to the 6th inning before anything more developed. With 1 out and 1 ball thrown to Evan Longoria in the 6th, Brandon Workman chucked a rising fastball behind and about 2 feet ABOVE Longoria. The pitch was without a doubt at least a bad attempt at a bean-ball and finally, the umpires recognized that. Workman and Butterfeild were both sent packing and suddenly we ended up with hitting coach Greg Coulbern acting as Boston's 4th manager of the night.
Coulbern would manage for all 5 innings between the Workman debacle and AJ Pierzynski's walk off triple in the 10th inning. But after dotting their opponents with baseball sized bruises and screaming copious amounts of profanity, the Sox and Rays took to the microphones after the game to further attack one another. One of the most blatant of this verbal attacks was made against David Price by David Ortiz.
"It's a war," Ortiz said after the Red Sox victory, "It's on. Next time I see him, he better put his gloves on. I have no respect for him anymore."
Ortiz also eluded to the fact that Price may still be angry about last year’s wild card round when Ortiz shredded him with multiple home runs. He hinted that Price's lingering hatred is a sign of bad sportsmanship.
"I had a lot of respect for the guy, man," he said. "It is over now. I have no more respect for him. Last year, we kicked his butt in the playoffs and he went off talking crap about everyone. We go to talk on the phone after we kind of straightened things out. He was upset, and then I let him know how I felt. Later on he called me and apologized because he knew he was wrong. Everything was cool, so the first at-bat of the season against him, he drills me."
John Farrell then came to the podium and cast a heavy eye on the umpires for allowing Price to stay in the game after the Ortiz bean-ball.
"David's a heckuva pitcher," Farrell said regarding Price. "He comes in with two hit batters and eight walks on the year. He's got the lowest walk rate in the American League. And when he throws a ball and hits David Ortiz in the back, there is intent to that. They can dispute that all they want. There is intent to that pitch. As emphatic as Dan Bellino's warning was, it sure seemed like Dan Bellino felt there was intent as well."
He then started talking about how in the world Price survived the Mike Carp hit batter incident 3 innings later. Farrell obviously disagreed with the umpires' handling of the warning system and why a second warning was not issued after Carp was hit.
"I disagreed with it," Farrell continued. "He took the ball out of our hand, and after [Red Sox first baseman] Mike Carp got hit with a ball up around his neck and they didn't make a move, then the umpires allowed this game to escalate even further. When we have four people ejected and also three players hit by pitches and they have none, that's a hard one to figure out," Farrell said. "He threw at Ortiz and hit him in the back. There's intent to that."
Umpire Dan Bellino defended his decision in the Carp incident while not speaking directly to the Ortiz handling.
"Again, if we feel there was intent to hit the batter, he would have been ejected," Bellino said of Price after the game. "We felt the pitch was certainly inside, but not intentional, so that's why he stayed in the game."
All and all, Friday night was a dark night for the umpiring universe. In a game with bean-balls galore, post-game comments of great foreboding nature, 4 umpires let a game get out of control and possibly set the stage for Ortiz's little feud with David Price to turn into the war he declared against him.
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