Blue Jays, Rangers put up their dukes

This was a fracas the Texas Rangers seemingly wanted, one they apparently had to have. That it might have been as much about flushing demons as getting revenge is irrelevant. So was waiting seven months and two days for the right moment.

These retaliations can be tricky things. In the end, they’re usually not all that satisfying.

Did Rangers reliever Matt Bush hitting Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista with a 96-mph fastball during Texas’ 7-6 win over Toronto Sunday afternoon remove any of the sting from that elimination game the Rangers lost in Toronto last fall?

Of course not. Don’t be silly.

Did the melee that eventually followed make any sense? Did it settle a single thing? Probably not, but it was one many have been expecting ever since Blue Jays-Rangers became one of baseball’s most unexpected — and intense — rivalries last fall.

Bautista knew what the Rangers had done the moment the fastball got him in the top of the eighth inning. Give them credit for patience. This was the seventh and final time the Rangers and Blue Jays will play in 2016, at least in the regular season. This was almost certainly Bautista’s final at-bat. The Rangers had just rallied for four runs to take a 7-6 lead.

“To me, it was gutless,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “We’ve played seven games. The other 29 teams out there, if they have an issue with you, they come at you right away. To wait until the end, that just kind of tells me a little something.”

That the Rangers had a one-run lead seemed less important than getting even. This was a moment for which they’d waited 215 days.

“It was very blatant,” Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson said. “[Bush] throws straight four-seamers. You go look at the replay, he throws it right at him.”

Plate umpire Dan Iassogna agreed because he issued a warning, meaning the next incident results in an automatic ejection. That happened in the bottom of the eighth, when Toronto reliever Jesse Chavez was ejected for hitting Prince Fielder.

After getting hit, Bautista got his revenge, sort of.

On an infield …

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