I was thinking about whether there have been a lot of benches-clearing incidents this season when it occurred to me that, of the ones I can remember, the Milwaukee Brewers keep showing up.
There was the embarrassing one with Jeff McNeil and the Mets. There was the weird one with the Orioles. And now, the Brewers have gotten into it with the Rays:
I don’t know if there have been a lot of these incidents overall in baseball this year, but I do know that THREE OF THEM for a single team in barely a month is a whole lot. And since the Brewers have now gotten into it with three different teams in barely a month, I’ve gotta believe they’re the problem. Just sayin’.
In this one, things started to get hot because Freddy Peralta plunked Jose Siri after he’d homered earlier in the game. The pitch was deemed intentional, and Peralta was booted. Brewers manager Pat Murphy came out to argue and he, too, got tossed (second night in a row for him).
The next time Siri was up, he grounded out, with pitcher Abner Uribe covering first base. The two brushed up against each other (looked like Uribe initiated the slight contact), words were exchanged, and then Uribe took the swing that’ll get him in some serious trouble (bad timing for the Brewers, who play the Cubs in Chicago this weekend).
I expect that the Brewers were frustrated about the calls they haven’t been getting lately (whether they’re right or not), but that sure isn’t a reason to be starting fights with another club.
Now, one moment of fairness to the Brewers: it occurs to me as I type that the one other benches-clearing incident I can remember from this season involved the Rays (remember the face push thing with the Blue Jays?). So maybe they’ve got a little bit of the “you’re the problem” going on, too. I hate being fair.