The Rangers and Blue Jays brawl that saw Rougned Odor punch Jose Bautista in the face dates back to last seasons ALDS. It was game five and the score was tied a three. There were runners on first and second with two outs and Bautista at the plate. Then Jose Bautista hit a long home run to left field and had the bat flip heard around the world. Clearly the Rangers did not forget about this.
This was the last game of the season between the Rangers and Blue Jays. So by this time you figured the Rangers wouldn’t look for retaliation but that wasn’t the case. In Bautista’s last at bat of the game the Rangers hit him. What followed is what started the brawl. On a ground ball, Bautista slid in hard on Odor at second base. Bautista then got up and looked right at Odor, Odor proceeded to shove him and then punched Bautista right in the face as the benches were clearing.
This was one of the biggest brawls the MLB has seen in some time, with someone getting punched in the face. Usually it’s just a lot of pushing and shoving, but not this one. Now the question is what will the fallout be to this. Will Rougned Odor get suspended? Bautista said after the game he was angry and came in hard on purpose and by the rule, his slide was an illegal slide. Then if you watch the video of the brawl, Bautista was about to get ready to try and throw a punch, he was just too slow. If Odor didn’t punch Bautista, Bautista might have punched him. This kind of reminded you of baseball in the old days. Pete Rose would brawl all of the time. The 1986 New York Mets brawled a lot. Then there’s the famous brawl between Nolan Ryan and Robin Ventura.
