The Kansas City Royals and Toronto Blue Jays treated fans to an eventful Sunday afternoon, as pitchers from either side threw at hitters like they were a bunch of college bros playing Wiffle ball in the quad. And get this — Yordano Ventura wasn’t even on the mound.
Ventura, who seems to be at the center of every controversy involving the Royals, did not pitch in the game. But he didn’t want to be left out completely, so he decided to threaten Jose Bautista on Twitter after the game.
Two people who read the tweets before Ventura deleted them translated them for Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports.
“We’ll meet again later and if you do that with me, you’ll see what I’m about,” Ventura tweeted at Bautista. “I don’t care about anybody. I used to respect you, but you’re a nobody. … You got lucky this time, but MLB doesn’t get canceled after this season. Keep running your mouth. … You need to stop giving signs. You’re gonna get it from me for being fresh and you really are a nobody.”
There’s a lot of context here, so we’ll break it down for you as best we can. As far as Sunday goes, it all started in the first inning when Royals pitcher Edinson Volquez hit Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson — who had been raking all series — with a pitch. Donaldson was convinced it was intentional, and home plate umpire Jim Wolf decided to warn both teams right off the bat.
It didn’t help.
Donaldson was brushed back yet again in the third with a pitch up and in. However, Wolf didn’t feel it was intentional and made a surprising decision to let Volquez stay in the game.
As you might expect, it got uglier from there. Royals reliever Ryan Madson plunked Troy Tulowitzki in the elbow in the seventh. Donaldson was the next batter, and he was brushed back a third time. Blue Jays manager John Gibbons was ejected for screaming at Wolf. Somehow, that was the first ejection of the game.
The very next inning, Blue Jays pitcher Aaron Sanchez was ejected for hitting Alcides Escobar in the leg. The benches finally cleared.
Verbal shots were exchanged left and right after the game, and you can read a good summary of them here. Royals manager Ned Yost said that none of the hit batsmen from his team were intentional and applauded Wolf for realizing that it is “part of the game.” Bautista didn’t appreciate Yost’s comments.
Just heard #NedYost comments about the game. Lost a lot of respect for that man today.
— Jose Bautista (@JoeyBats19) August 2, 2015
And finally, we have arrived back at Ventura threatening Bautista. The “stop giving signs” comment was likely a reference to this incident from several years ago.
Ventura is the definition of a pot-stirrer. He started a brawl between the Royals and White Sox back in April when he tossed a four-letter word at Adam Eaton as Eaton was jogging to first. Prior to that, he was ejected from a game for hitting Brett Lawrie. Oh, and there was another incident in April when he got into it with Mike Trout.
Something tells me this won’t be the last the Blue Jays and Royals get into it. We can only hope they somehow meet in the playoffs.
Photo: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports
