A couple of teams going nowhere decided to let out some frustrations Sunday.
In a melee, brouhaha, or scrum (whatever word you like to use), the Los Angeles Angels and Seattle Mariners got in one at The Big A. It took 18 minutes for order to be restored. That’s a long time for a baseball fight.
In fact, the fight had multiple distinct and separate parts. It had obscene gestures, a player in a cast throwing…slaps? Plus the Angels lost a lot of sunflower seeds.
The Angels eventually beat the Mariners, 2-1 and are now 35-40, a mere 11.5 games back in the AL West. The Mariners are 34-40.
But you want to know about the fight, right?
First, the backstory
Mike Trout is good. He’s so good opposing managers don’t know what to do with him.
Saturday night, the Mariners are up 5-3 in the ninth inning. Angels have a runner on. Trout coming to bat.
What’s Mariner Manager Scott Servais to do? A home run ties the game. Trout hits a lot of home runs.
The Mariners call a conference on the mound. The first pitch is inside.
The next pitch by Mariners reliever Erik Swanson sails up and in at Trout’s head.
Trout is not happy. The Mariners end up just putting Trout on and taking their chances with Shohei Ontani.
Was Swanson trying to throw at Trout’s head? The Mariners catcher set up his frame up high, but it really looks like the pitch gets away from Swanson and just rises.
Ohtani flies out. Ball game. Mariners win.
Let’s do this again tomorrow! I’m sure no one will remember!
The foreplay
I’ve watched the fight now from three different angles. It’s a good one.
Angel fans, like, it’s obvious from the jump that the Angels want retaliation for Saturday night. The Angels start pitcher Andrew Wantz. First Mariners batter of the game is Julio Rodriguez. Wants throws behind him right away.
Cue the warnings from the umpires. The toothless, meaningless warnings.
Second inning now, Wantz back on the bump. The Mariners batter is Jesse Winker. The first pitch, Wantz doesn’t even try to be cute. He throws a 91 mile per hour fastball and plunks Winker right on the hip/upper thigh, ok, maybe the butt.
Winker looks over at the Angels dugout in the classic “WTF” pose.
Umpire stops the game. Winker and Angels catcher Max Stassi have a few words. Winker takes a few steps toward the mound.
Round One
Winker starts walking toward Wantz. The umpire holds him off. Winker is like, ‘get off me bro,’ and it’s funny how the umpire just lets him go.
There’s a second umpire in Winker’s way. Winker is now heading toward the Angels dugout.
The first guy out of the Angels dugout is Anthony Rendon. Hey, gotta earn your $245 million somehow. Rendon, with a cast on his arm, slaps at Winker’s cheek with his left hand.
Fight! Fight!
Winker clearly lands some good left hands on someone? Who knows?
Winker is pushed up against the netting. There are guys on the ground, which is the worst place to be in a baseball fight (you can get kicked). Angels outfielder Monte Harrison is trying to pull people off.
Eugenio Suarez is trying to get Winker out of the crowd.
At the moment there are 23 Angels on the field, 17 Mariners.
Round Two
Out of the back comes the Mariners J.P. Crawford and he jumps up and starts swinging at Rendon. Luis Torres is trying to get Crawford off of everybody.
The four umpires are standing off to the side. One starts writing down numbers. Matt Duffy of the Angels pulls off Crawford. Suarez is pinned up along the netting by an unknown Angel. Another Angels coach is barking at Suarez and another Mariners coach.
The crowd starts cheering “Let’s Go Angels.”
Round Three
Ok, so order is reasonably restored. The two teams are doing that thing where they are staring each other down, but no one wants to do anything else.
If you look closely though, you can see someone in an Angels uniform loop around, like he’s trying to get at someone.
Here we go again. I don’t know who the Angels ‘looper’ is, but Angels coach Jason Brown ends up in the middle of the pile. Suarez is still ticked.
Winker is like, ‘come on, bro.’ He walks back to the Mariners dugout and flips the double bird at the crowd. Fleming Baez, the Mariners bullpen catcher is still chirping.
Finally, things are calm. Sort of.
Round Four
Minutes later, the umpires are conferring with both managers, which means none are watching the field.
Angels pitcher Raisel Iglesias heaves a box of bubble gum on to the field. Why? Who knows.
Next he chucks a blue box full of delicious ‘Giants’ Sunflower seeds out. The box is full of bags of seeds. Those delicious, salty seeds. (Homer Simpson voice).
Winker is in his dugout chilling, but he takes a few steps out but is grabbed by Carson Vitale and is done.
And that is that.
The Aftermath
No one looks real good in this situation. Wantz told ESPN he had been sweating and it was like, his first day game in the majors, so I guess that meant he was…excited? So I guess that means clearly he wasn’t throwing at anyone. Twice. In two separate innings.
Rendon looks like a doofus for fighting with a cast on his arm. What was Jason Brown doing exactly? The umpires also looked totally clueless. A clever Mariners fan sent a pizza to Winker in the Mariners clubhouse and documented it all on social media.
Maybe the best thing is Iglesias can get an advertising deal with Giant Sunflower seeds.
The Angels host the White Sox Monday night. It’s already been a long season.
