Tampa Bay Rays, Boston Red Sox clear benches at Tropicana Field
By Hayden Kane
The frustration of this season has likely built up for the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox, two teams that have been disappointments thus far. It appears that the Red Sox reached their boiling point on Sunday afternoon. To the surprise of nobody, Jonny Gomes was the man leading the way.
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The Rays and Red Sox cleared the benches on Sunday afternoon at Tropicana Field. At issue was the decision by Tampa Bay’s mercurial shortstop, Yunel Escobar, to steal third in the bottom of the 7th inning with his team ahead by five runs (the score was 8-3 at the time).
The Red Sox dugout, David Ross especially, started barking at Escobar. He yelled back. Gomes ran in so that he could be involved. Things escalated from there, though the situation never truly reached the status of a brawl.
There was more reasonable minds than not on both sides, which is why logic appears to have prevailed in this case.
For a team that is trying to complete a key divisional sweep at home, it hardly seems unreasonable that the Rays would want to tack on insurance runs and that Escobar would take an extra base as part of those efforts. It’s not as if Tampa Bay was up by 10 runs or something like that…something that would resemble an actual blowout.
Furthermore, the Red Sox probably would not even have taken a second look at Escobar’s stolen base if they were not on the verge of 10 straight losses. Such is the problem for a team that appears to be falling apart. At that point the guys who were the “veteran leaders” on the good team, guys like Gomes and David Ross, end up being the catalysts for a nonsensical incident that clears the benches.
Here is the video of the incident from MLB.com: