Jose Bautista takes right cross to the face as Blue Jays brawl with Rangers

July 31, 2024

It took a little while, but the Rangers more than got their revenge on Jose Bautista: The Blue Jays outfielder, who memorably tossed his bat after hitting a home run as Toronto rallied past Texas in a do-or-die playoff game last year, got punched in the face Sunday by Texas second baseman Rougned Odor, setting off a wild brawl.

Bautista had been hit by a pitch leading off the top of the eighth inning at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Tex., in what will be the final game this season between the two teams — unless they meet again in the playoffs (and let’s all hope they do). Two batters later, Toronto’s Justin Smoak hit a ground ball that third baseman Adrian Beltre flipped to Odor, who took a hard slide from Bautista.

That’s when all heck broke loose. Odor shoved Bautista, then slugged him with a right to the mouth that knocked off the outfielder’s helmet and sunglasses, leading to quite the benches-clearing donnybrook.

Bautista was restrained by Beltre from going back at Odor, but several teammates, led by fellow outfielder Kevin Pillar and third baseman Josh Donaldson, led the charge at the Rangers. Then, after both sides finally settled down and the game moved to the bottom of the eighth, Toronto’s Jesse Chavez beaned Texas’s Prince Fielder. That cleared the benches again, but this time without the same fisticuffs.

“I thought it was pretty cowardly of them to wait until my last at-bat to do that [bean him], in the whole series,” Bautista said (via MLB.com). “They could have come out and done it if they just wanted to kind of send a message.”

“Ugly and unfortunate,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said (via MLB.com). “To me, it was gutless.

“We’ve played seven games,” Gibbons continued, referring to the just-completed season series between the two teams “… The other 29 teams out there, if they have an issue with you, they come at you right away. To wait until the end, that just kind of tells me a little something.”

Bautista: "He got me pretty good so I have to give him that. But it takes a little bit of a bigger man, I guess, to knock me down" #BlueJays

— Gregor Chisholm (@GregorChisholm) May 15, 2016

Zero respect for Odor. Never had respect for him, never will.

— Marcus Stroman (@STR0) May 15, 2016

When the dust fully settled, the ejections looked like this:

Blue Jays: Bautista, Chavez, Donaldson, Gibbons (who returned to the field after having been ejected in the third inning) and bench coach DeMarlo Hale (plus first base coach Tim Leiper was also tossed in the third inning)
Rangers: Odor, bench coach Steve Buechele

“It’s almost like hockey,” umpire Dale Scott said of the brawl (via Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com). “Once they go to the ice, you try to break it up. Once they kinda separate, then we can jump in and try to separate the teams. But there’s 40 of them and there’s four of us.

“We report what we saw,” Scott added. “Eject whoever we eject. [MLB officials] will look at the video also. There were a lot of people there. There might have been some stuff that we didn’t see on the field. The league will take a look at it and they’ll handle it.”

Odor can expect a long suspension and a major fine, with Bautista also likely punished in a similar, but lesser, way. Gibbons, Chavez, Pillar and the Rangers’ Matt Bush, who had beaned Bautista, also figure to hear from the league.

Oh, and Texas won, 7-6.

(H/T NBC Sports)

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