Rays Blog

The Rays got into a good ol fashioned brawl with the New York Yankees the other day.  This was all stemming from a home plate collision a few days before.  Yankees Manager Joe Girardi went on and on about how he thought the play was dirty and uncalled for.  While a home plate collision, during spring training or the regular season, is hardly a dirty a play, sticking your spikes up at another player is a dirty play.  That’s how the Yankees retaliated.

Five players ended up getting tossed from the game.  There was a feeling that there could be some retaliation during the game and the umpires were clearly looking out for that sort of stuff.  In the first inning, Evan Longoria took a fastball high and tight from Yankees pitcher Heath Phillips.  Phillips was promptly tossed.  After Shelley Duncan slid spikes first into Aki Iwamura benches cleared and players briefly fought before it was broken up.

It will interesting to see if any of this tension carries over into the regular season.  Since they are division rivals they will play each other a bunch this season and there could be more fireworks to come.