Amir Garrett strikeout leads to benches-clearing drama in Cubs-Reds (Video)

Amir Garrett’s strikeout of Anthony Rizzo causes the benches to clear between the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs on Saturday.

On Friday night, the benches cleared between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies following a strikeout. Not even 24 hours later, we had another incident, this time involving the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, relief pitcher Amir Garrett struck out Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo. But following the strikeout, Garrett yelled toward Rizzo as he walked to the dugout, while also pounding his chest. Rizzo’s teammate, shortstop Javier Baez, was not thrilled with Garrett’s actions, exchanged words with the Reds pitcher and eventually resulted in the benches clearing.

Amir Garrett strikeout leads to the benches clearing between Reds and Cubs

Baez had to be held back by a variety of players, as Garrett was held back by catcher Tyler Stephenson. Despite the benches clearing, no hands were thrown and neither the pitcher or shortstop were ejected from the game.

This was not the first time that both Baez and Garrett exchanged words that resulted in the benches clearing. Back on May 19, 2018, Garrett struck out Baez and proceeded to stare him down. That led to the two exchanging words and both dugouts clearing.

Following the exchanging of words on Saturday, the Cubs held on to win 3-2 and to split the weekend series. Garrett recorded his lone strikeout on Rizzo in his 0.2 innings of relief work, where he did not surrender a single run. As for Baez, he went one-for-four with one run scored and two strikeouts.

The two NL Central rivals will conclude their three-game set on Sunday afternoon, which could make for some much-watch television.