You could see this one coming a mile away.
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Detroit — You could see this one coming a mile away.
Not a Tigers win, mind you, but rather the rising tensions between the Tigers and Yankees — who brawled once and emptied the benches twice more as eight coaches and players were ejected on a wild and cuss-filled Thursday afternoon of beanball at Comerica Park.
The Tigers won, 10-6, for just their second victory since Aug. 12. The end result, though, will be just a footnote when this ballgame is discussed and dissected years from now.
The main event of a three-fight card occurred in the bottom of the sixth inning, when Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera and Yankees catcher Austin Romine got into an intense shoving match that ignited a benches-clearing brawl in the bottom of the sixth inning.
With the first pitch of the at-bat to Cabrera in the sixth, Yankees reliever Tommy Kahnle chucked it behind him, obvious retaliation for a Michael Fulmer pitch that hit Yankees slugger Gary Sanchez in the hip in the fifth. The previous inning, Sanchez had homered, his fourth of the series.
Sanchez was not happy about being plunked, and understandably after hitting nearly 1,800 feet of homers in the three games, and he strolled slowly to first. After that half-inning, Sanchez walked gingerly off the field, glancing twice at the Tigers dugout.
BOX SCORE: Tigers 10, Yankees 6
After Kahnle’s pitch in the sixth, Cabrera stepped out of the box, then strutted back in before getting right in Romine’s face. The Yankees catcher, who is the brother of Tigers utilityman Andrew Romine, ripped off his mask. Cabrera shoved him, then tried a few punches before Romine tackled him by lowering his shoulder to the big man’s midsection.
On the ground, Romine got in a few punches to Cabrera’s back, which has bothered him all season long. Sanchez also raced right into the thick of the scrum and landed several punches, including one on Cabrera, seemingly to the head, while he was on the ground.
Austin Romine and Miguel Cabrera get into a fight at home plate and it escalates into a benches-clearing brawl. pic.twitter.com/mpqgbyguCB
Andrew Romine eventually stepped in to make peace with his brother, while umpires also worked to calm the situation and sort things out. That scuffle led to four ejections — Kahnle, Cabrera, Romine and Yankees manager Joe Girardi. With Romine’s ejection, Sanchez had to move to catcher, meaning the Yankees lost their designated hitter.
The teams went at it again an inning later, after a really scary scene, when new Yankees reliever Dellin Betances drilled the first batter he faced, Tigers catcher James McCann in the helmet with a 98-mph fastball. Several Tigers immediately jumped over the third-base dugout, and manager Brad Ausmus was particularly fired up.
There were no punches thrown during that altercation, which led to the ejection of Betances and Yankees bench coach Rob Thompson. Betances was irate at the ejection, pointing to the scoreboard which read 6-6, as if to say he would never intentionally hit a batter in a tie game. The Yankees are in a playoff race, after all, though headhunting after an earlier brawl always will get you tossed. The optics aren’t good.
McCann, who was in the thick of the earlier brawl, was motionless on the ground for several seconds, before bouncing up and being examined by trainer Kevin Rand and, after he calmed down, Ausmus. McCann stayed in the game.
Justin Verlander was NOT happy Victor Martinez tried to play peacemaker pic.twitter.com/iFIOKDUE2T
Interestingly, after that incident, cameras caught Justin Verlander and Victor Martinez having words in the Tigers dugout, apparently over Martinez being a bit too chummy with the Yankees during the second scrum. Video caught Verlander casually gesturing to Martinez before walking away as Martinez had some heated comments, as Nick Castellanos was in the middle of them.
David Robertson replaced Betances (3-5) and, unbelievably, hit the first batter he faced, John Hicks, with a 93-mph fastball. While the crowd of 32,622 booed loudly, nothing materialized there as Hicks walked slowly to first. Robertson was disgusted with himself, and it was clearly seen as an accident.
The incident the next half-inning, not so much.
After the Tigers retook the lead, 9-6, with three runs in the bottom of the seventh, Alex Wilson plunked Yankees third baseman Todd Frazier in the top of the eighth. Benches cleared yet again, with Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner particularly fired up and getting into a shoving match with several Tigers before he was ripped away by teammates. Ausmus and Wilson (2-4) were ejected just before the game turned four hours old. Wilson was replaced by Shane Greene.
Through it all, the Tigers banged out 10 hits, led by Jose Iglesias‘ three — including a two-run double and a bases-clearing double that untied the game in the seventh inning. Iglesias has seven hits in his last three games. JaCoby Jones also had a two-run single, his first RBIs since early April.
Justin Upton homered in the first inning, his 27th, and McCann homerd in the eighth, his 12th — and in the very at-bat after getting drilled in the head. He launched a Chad Smith off-speed pitch 430-some feet into the overcast sky, admired it for several seconds, then flipped the bat for all to see.
Shane Greene worked a relatively calm — and ejection-free! — ninth for his fourth save, the crowd roared as loud as it has in weeks when he struck out, of all people, Sanchez for the final out.
Now all eyes turn to the commissioner’s office, which will be charged with sorting out of the fines and suspensions — which will mean a whole lot more to the Yankees, fighting for the American League East, than the Tigers, blown out the first two games by a combined score of 23-6 and who have been a lost cause for quite some time.
That said, in this disaster of a season, at least the Tigers can say they are going down swinging.
