When the benches cleared for a second time late Tuesday night between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers, it wasn't just for show.
The tension began to flare when Diamondbacks' catcher Miguel Montero argued with home plate umpire Clint Fagan about the balls/strikes count to right fielder Yasiel Puig in the bottom of the fourth inning. A first pitch fastball from starting pitcher Ian Kennedy in on Puig's hands blatantly pegged the knob of Puig's bat and ricocheted to Montero's left, but Fagan apparently called the pitch a ball. After a heated argument between Montero and Fagan that had to be broken up by Arizona Diamondbacks' Manager Kirk Gibson, Puig would eventually strike out, even if it took one more strike to get the job done.
The Diamondbacks were able to take the first lead of the night on a 2-run homerun by left fielder Jason Kubel in the top of the fifth inning, but the real fireworks didn't begin until the bottom of the sixth. A wild fastball up and in to the right-handed hitting Puig appeared to hit him flush in the face at first glance, sending him straight to the ground immediately. After sitting in the dirt in front of home plate with Dodgers' head athletic trainer Sue Falsone and her assistant Greg Harrel, Puig had escaped serious injury. The ball hit him in the tip of the nose, and after spending a few minutes being checked by the trainers, he remained in the game.
Andre Ethier followed in the next at-bat with a huge two-run homerun of his own as he tied the game 2-2. The hit was arguably his biggest of the season thus far, as his own manager, Don Mattingly, had called him out in previous weeks as being a soft player that did not play his hardest for the team.
The same cannot be said for Dodgers' ace Zack Greinke. In just his second start of the season, Greinke plunked San Diego right fielder Carlos Quentin with a pitch that resulted in a charge to the mound and a brawl that ended in a suspension for Quentin and left Greinke with a broken collar bone. On Tuesday night, Greinke cemented his place in Dodger-land as being a bulldog.
When Montero led off the top of the seventh inning, Greinke threw him a fastball on a 2-1 count that ended up between his shoulder blades, inciting the first of the two bench-clearings for the night. No punches were thrown, but Greinke was clearly protecting his teammate in Puig, whether or not his beaning was intentional. Once the field was cleared, Greinke settled down again and finished the inning, still tied at 2.
The bottom of the seventh did not go nearly as smoothly. Dodgers' hortstop Luis Cruz popped out to first baseman Paul Goldschmidt to lead off the inning, with Greinke coming up to hit behind him. The first pitch from Kennedy was a fastball that drilled Greinke in the left shoulder, sending players flying out of each dugout towards the field, meeting by home plate and eventually forming a mob of players and coaches that slowly drifted over towards the first base dugout. The bullpens also cleared and punches began to fly as both players and coaches were caught up in baseball's biggest brawl of 2013.
Diamondbacks' Assistant Hitting Coach Turner Ward was the most obvious target by the Dodgers, as he was laid out over the dugout railing before getting pinned against the netting of the fence as both teams pushed, shoved, and punched their way through the crowd. Beyond that giant mass of a fight, Don Mattingly could also be seen throwing Diamondback's Bench Coach Alan Trammel to the ground before continuing an argument with the umpires.
When order was finally restored, no major injuries occurred in the brawl and it led to a combined six ejections of players and coaches from both teams: Diamondbacks' Gibson, Kennedy, and the Dodgers' Puig, Hitting Coach Mark McGwire, and reliever Ronald Belisario. While no suspensions have been announced yet, many are surely on the way.
The seventh inning resumed and ended without a run, leading to the Diamondbacks' run in the top of the eighth inning, scoring on second baseman Willie Bloomquist's RBI single. Set-up man David Hernandez came on to pitch the bottom of the eighth, and the Dodgers were able to capitalize on three walks by Hernandez with a big 3-run double by catcher Tim Federowicz, giving Los Angeles a 5-3 lead.
Fresh off the announcement prior to the game that Brandon League had lost his job as the closer, Dodgers' reliever Kenley Jansen came on to close out the game in the ninth and retired the side in order to secure the thrilling victory.
While this may have seemed like a good game with some excitement and a win for the home team, it was much, much more than that for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Through 44 games in 2013, the Dodgers are 28-36, good for last place in the National League West, now 7.5 games behind the aforementioned Arizona Diamondbacks. This is a team that has acquired nearly a billion dollar's worth of contractual commitment to its players within the last calendar year.
After making the big splash last season for shortstop/third baseman Hanley Ramirez and then going on to acquire first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, outfielder Carl Crawford, and starting pitcher Josh Beckett, this team didn't even wait until the offseason to begin prepping for a huge run in 2013. With a new ownership group that has been headed by former NBA player Magic Johnson, Dodger fans have had nothing but big promises made to them following years of poor management and incompetent ownership. They went into the offseason and spent even more money shoring up the team by adding starting pitcher Greinke to lead the pitching staff for years to come alongside their reigning Cy Young award-winner, Clayton Kershaw.
As the numbers alone can tell you, the Dodgers have underperformed dramatically this season. Chronic injuries to Matt Kemp, Carl Crawford, and Hanley Ramirez have severely weakened the team offensively, and right fielder Andre Either, despite having the big hit in Tuesday's game, has been terrible at the plate and has led to heavy trade rumors despite being in the first year of a 5 year, $85 million extension he signed with the team. The man that Dodger fans used to call Captain Clutch for his ability to get big hits late in games was beginning to lose playing time in recent weeks before injuries to their outfield forced him back into the lineup, and his future in Dodgertown may be coming to an end.
The lone bright spot for the Dodgers has been Puig, the Cuban outfielder who has impressed in all facets of the game in his brief 10-day stint in the major leagues so far. With a strong arm, blazing speed, and a powerful bat, he has already made a case that he is in the majors to stay, which would lead to an odd-man out in the outfield, a spot that the Dodgers would take away from Ethier in order to facilitate.
Puig has been so important to the Dodgers that Greinke took it upon himself to protect the kid. Regardless of intent, Greinke told all of major league baseball last night that he will not allow his teammates to be targets. In only 8 games played for the Dodgers, Greinke has displayed an incredible amount of loyalty to this team.
Having began his career in Kansas City with the Royals, Greinke has been around the game for a while now. His career was nearly ended by a severe bout of anxiety and depression, which he was able to overcome and follow it with great success and even a Cy Young award. However, he has not had a true "home" until now. After his Cy Young award season in 2009, he was immediately marked as trade bait by the rebuilding Kansas City Royals, subjecting him to rumors for months until he was finally dealt to the Milwaukee Brewers. He pitched well for Milwaukee but his stay was a short one, as he was traded after a year and a half to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim midway through the 2012 season.
After packing his bags three times in three years, Greinke signed a 6 year, $147 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was brought in to be the final piece to the puzzle, to not only help the Dodgers win a World Series, but to continue to compete for a championship for the next half-decade.
That brings us to 2013. This team hasn't had much in the way of luck in terms of injuries, as even Greinke has missed time this year, but the one thing they still have on their side is time. With two-thirds of the season remaining, a comeback is not out of the question for this talented team. On Tuesday night, the statement was made. Their bulldog on the mound protected his teammate, arguably their best player at the moment in Puig, and the fire in this team was on full-display as they fought both on the field and at the plate, letting the league know that they are not to be messed with despite their shortcomings thus far. These Dodgers still have fight left in them, and once their big guns come back to health, they will definitely be a force to be reckoned with, and not just for their brawls.
