Yankees And Tigers Brawl In Baseball’s Most Violent Fight This Season, Tigers Win Game 10-6

Thursday night’s match up between the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers saw team benches clear three times, four batters hit by pitches, eight ejections, and a whole lot of cheers from the stands.

While tensions between the two American League teams have been brewing over the course of the 2017 baseball season, they came to a head on Thursday night after the Yankee’s Tommy Kahnle tossed a pitch behind Miguel Cabrera with two outs in the sixth inning.

Kahnle was promptly thrown out of the game but while his replacement, Aroldis Chapman, was warming up, Cabrera and Yankee’s catcher Austine Romine got into a shouting match. The words stop being exchanged when the Tiger shoved Romine and the two went squabbling into the ground.

Benches cleared quickly and pitches and catchers from each team’s respective bull-pen came sprinting towards home plate.

In one of the more jarring moments from the brawl, the young Yankee Gary Sanchez can be seen throwing punches directly into Cabrera’s side while the 34-year-old veteran gets crushed by a pile of players. For his actions, Sanchez, who is hitting .278 with 27 home runs and 74 RBI this year, will likely be suspended.

While conflicts between the team occurred before Thursday’s match up, the first spark in Detroit yesterday came when Sanchez, who homered earlier in the game, was drilled by Detroit pitcher Michael Fulmer.

“If you can’t see that Fulmer clearly hit Sanchez on purpose, there’s something wrong,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi told reporters after the game. Kahnle threw at Cabrera in retaliation for the pitch thrown at Sanchez.

Both Romine and Cabrera gave accounts of the beginning of the brawl to reporters after the game.

“[Cabrera] said, ‘You have a problem with me?’ And I said, ‘This isn’t about you,'” Romine said. “And then he pushed me. It felt like he wanted a confrontation there and I just tried to defend myself the best I could.”

Miggy told a slightly different story. “When they throw at me, it was OK. I was cool with that,” he said. “When they started arguing with the umpire, I said to Romine, ‘Calm down.'”

Among others, Cabrera, Romine, Girardi, and Kahnle were all ejected in the sixth.

An inning later, Dellin Betances hit the Tigers’ James McCann in the head, claiming the pitch to be an accident. Betances was ejected. The benches also cleared at this point.

The benches cleared a third time when Tiger’s pitcher Alex Wilson hit Todd Frazier in the leg with an intentional wild pitch.

Said Wilson after the game, “With me, hitting a guy in the leg, it’s what I have to do and that’s what I did. Fortunately for me, I know where my pitches are going, and I hit a guy in the leg today to take of my teammates and protect them.”

Wilson was ejected.

While the Yankees hold a tight lead over the Wild Card standings, the Tigers had less to lose on Thursday with a record of 55-71, good enough for fourth place in the AL Central. Despite the 10-6 loss, the Yankees took the three game series two games to one.

The Yankees head back to the Bronx on Friday night for the first of three against the Seattle Mariners and the Tigers start a three game set against the White Sox in Chicago.

No player has been suspended yet by Major League Baseball although suspensions are likely to come.

Watch the brawl in full below.