Was it all intentional? Of course it was. The Rangers had lost the series, lost the last four and five out of the last six to the Astros…they’re in danger of losing their lead in the division…Pena with an extra base hit, Bregman with a 3-run home run, and Yordan swings out of his shoes on a hanging 0-2 slider. Perhaps it wasn’t Heaney’s intention per se to hit Alvarez, but the location was intentional. Call it a purpose pitch, a bowtie, chin music, whatever, but Heaney absolutely hit his spot on that pitch that hit Alvarez. Somebody, somebody meaningful, on the Rangers was getting drilled. That was a given. Semien just drew the short straw with being the next guy with 1-out and the bases empty. The rest was just boys will be boys dick measuring. I thought the umpires handled it well, though were it a 1-run game rather than a 10-run game, either Bochy or Dusty, or both, may have gotten the thumb too.
Agree with all of the above. The umps didn’t overreact, they got together at the appropriate times and kept the managers in the game.
As I said in the gz, I hate the benches emptying BS. But it is compelling drama that gets clicks and drives a narrative (“no love lost between these teams”) so until something really ugly happens MLB will keep the status quo.
Advantage Astros. This is the season the Rangers and their fans could only dream of for so many years and now they see the real possibility of it all slipping away and panic is setting in. They know that the Astros are getting healthy at just the right time. They know that Dusty is riding a proven thoroughbred and soon he will be going to the whip. Their time of looking over their shoulders at the Astros could be ending soon.
The Astro players will not be forgetting that game for awhile.
One last thing from me:
That little Oakland refugee shit got hit even lower than Yordan did.
Fuck him and his antics.