Picture Credit: Twitter
The game between the Los Angeles Angels and Seattle Mariners took a sour turn as both teams were involved in a massive brawl. Seattle’s Jesse Winker was hit by the first pitch of the second inning by Angels pitcher Andrew Wantz, who also threw a pitch behind the head of the Mariners’ No 2 hitter, Julio Rodriguez, in the first inning.
The first pitch to Rodriguez looked like a response to Erik Swanson’s 95 mph fastball near Mike Trout’s head in the ninth inning during Saturday night’s game. This throw enraged the three-time AL MVP. Moments after pitch, Winker reacted by going toward the Los Angeles dugout instead of Wantz. This led to chaos on the field as both bullpens barged out and Winker even started flipping off the Los Angeles crowd. Just when it seemed to be settling down, it started up again.
Seattle manager Scott Servais talked about the incident and said, “That probably shouldn’t happen in the game, what happened out there today. Emotions running high, but it was pretty clear what was going on. They switched, put an opener in there to throw some balls at us. Got out of hand from there, and kind of a black eye.”
Angels interim manager Phil Nevin also reacted to the incident and said, “Look, you play eight games in a matter of a week against the same team, things like this happen. The scheduling, tensions, that’s baseball sometimes, unfortunately. There’s some ugly incidents once in a while. I think that’s just what happened today.”
But out of this brawl, a slightly funny incident came up as closer Raisel Iglesias returned to ground a few moments, threw large containers of sunflower seeds and gum onto the infield while screaming at the umpires as he was outraged.