The bad blood started in 2018, with Andrew Kittredge hitting Austin Romine and CC Sabathia’s infamous plunking of Jesus Sucre in the “that’s for you, bitch” retaliation. It continued into 2020, when benches cleared after Aroldis Chapman threw over Mike Brosseau’s head last September and Rays manager Kevin Cash made the famous “stable of guys who throw 98” remark.
And, it boiled over in 2021, with Chapman suspended for the first two games of this season for the Brosseau incident, and Rays batters getting hit by pitches in each of the first two games of the first series of this season.
So, when Jordan Montgomery hit Austin Meadows in the first inning of the Yankees’ eventual 8-4, 10-inning win over the Rays Sunday, plunking Meadows in the shoulder, it’s no surprise both benches were immediately warned.
“I wasn’t trying to (hit him); it is what it is, but I understand the umpires were trying to control the situation,” Montgomery said after the game. “I never really found a tempo and was a little wild, and didn’t really settle in until the fourth inning or so.”
“I think it’s clear that Monty was struggling to find his command early and that one kind of got away from him,” manager Aaron Boone added later.
There could’ve been fireworks, but instead, nothing happened then, or when Montgomery hit Meadows again, this time in the leg with a sinker, in the fifth inning. The umpires had to confer, but Montgomery was not ejected, nor was there any hostility between the two teams.
“I was a little concerned on the second one; definitely no intent but I understand their anger,” Boone said. “You see Meadows get hit up around the shoulder…I’d be upset on our side, intent or not, but on the next one, I think the umpires did a good job of getting together and keeping him in the game.”
No hostility during the game, even after Gary Sanchez was ruled to be hit by a pitch that bounced in the seventh inning, but some of the Rays weren’t happy with the full monty, pun intended, of plunkings in the series.
“Honestly, it’s tough to say. It’s one of those things where, going by some reactions, it may not have looked that way,” Rays catcher Mike Zunino, who homered off Montgomery, said. “But it was three games, it was three different guys, obviously Meadows twice today. Just one of those where, if it is coincidence, it’s crazy to happen three days in a row.”
Added Cash: “It’s unfortunate. Do I personally think the guy was trying to hit him? I do not. But this continues to roll over. Don’t care whether he did it on purpose or not, I don’t like it. And then you add the other element of coming up around the shoulder and the head area, where like none of us like that. So I’ll leave it at that.”
The Yankees and Rays will meet 16 more times this season, and Cash is hoping this is the end of everything – but he’s not so sure that will be the case, doubling down on MLB mishandling the situation between the teams.
“It’s been so grossly mishandled by Major League Baseball the last year. Major League Baseball is here to protect its players on both teams, on all 30 teams. I don’t think they did that last year, they could have done a better job, and maybe we’d have moved past this," Cash said.
And Cash, who served a one-game suspension for that “stable of guys who throw 98” quip, still believes that no matter what the Yankees say, the scales have been tilted in their favor, given that since the Sabathia situation, Rays batters have been hit by Bombers pitching more than the other way around, to a 23-15 tune – and that 23 is more batter than the Yankees have hit on any other team since.
“I know Tanaka is over in Japan but he got off scot-free, and nothing we can do about that,” Cash said, referencing a Masahiro Tanaka plunking of Joey Wendle that he thinks was ‘definitely intentional.’ “I’ve got a buddy that told me that there’s no recourse, there’s never any recourse. And I kind of took that and I understand that, that there isn’t any recourse. Because it’s just carryover and intent or not, most major league players are going to look at you and say, it doesn’t feel good.”
The Yankees and Rays meet again next weekend, with three games in the Bronx Friday through Sunday, and their next series in Tampa is set for May 11-13.
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