Blue Jays fall in Texas as rivalry heats up

ARLINGTON — The rivalry between the Blue Jays and Rangers turned ugly on Sunday afternoon as a pair of bench-clearing incidents overshadowed Texas’ 7-6 victory.

The fracas started when Jose Bautista was hit by a pitch from right-hander Matt Bush during the eighth, but the scene turned chaotic later in that frame. Bautista made a hard slide into second base and made contact with the legs of second baseman Rougned Odor and everything went downhill from there.

Odor took exception to the play and the two got into a physical altercation. Bautista and Josh Donaldson were ejected from the Blue Jays’ side, while Odor and bench coach Steve Buechele got tossed on the Rangers’ side. That was the first of two incidents as Toronto retaliated when Jesse Chavez hit Prince Fielder with a pitch in the bottom half of the inning.

The situation completely clouded what was an otherwise back-and-forth affair. Toronto had a 6-4 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh, but Desmond changed that with one swing of the bat on a three-run shot to left-center field. That allowed the Rangers to escape with a 2-1 series victory in the final time these two teams play each other this season.

“We had another opportunity here to kind of test ourselves against them and came out on top,” Desmond said. “Not to say it was easy by any stretch of the imagination, but I felt like we rose to the occasion a little bit, which was good.”

MOMENTS THAT MATTERED Bad blood boils over: When benches cleared in the top of the eighth, virtually everyone in uniform from both teams gathered in a scrum behind second base for several minutes. Three batters were hit by pitches and four players were ejected. Bautista, who angered the Rangers with his flamboyant bat flip after his homer in Game 5 of last year’s American League Division Series, was hit by a 96-mph pitch, and then slid high and hard into second base as Odor attempted to turn a double play. Odor’s throw sailed wide, and after the two players came to their feet, Odor shoved Bautista with both hands, Bautista pushed back, and Odor punched Bautista in the jaw. In total, there were eight ejections in the game. 

“These are two ballclubs that obviously are playing hard to win baseball games and are emotional,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said. “I take offense to anybody that ever thinks that this is a game that shouldn’t be played hard, that shouldn’t be played with emotion …

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