Benches clear! Astros flamethrower gives Angels and LA another reason to hate Houston

The biggest highlight to come from Thursday's slate of MLB games came when the benches cleared at Dodger Stadium. The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres were hitting each other with pitches all series, and frustrations finally boiled over when Fernando Tatis Jr. was drilled with a pitch for the second time in three games. Soon after, Robert Suarez was ejected and later suspended for hitting Shohei Ohtani with a pitch in retaliation. Things weren't as tense on Friday night between the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels, but benches did clear after Hunter Brown hit Zach Neto with a pitch.

This one was clearly not intentional, but Neto still took exception to it. After discovering his reasoning, it isn't hard to see why he was so irate.

Neto said, "That's twice," after getting hit. After further inspection, he was referring to Brown hitting him twice with pitches. Houston's ace got him with a pitch in a game last season as well, so Neto was frustrated by that happening again.

Brown's NSFW response to Neto was quite simple: "Don't stand on the f'n plate." From his perspective, it's hard to blame him as well.

Ultimately, this incident will force another team from Los Angeles to hate the Astros with a burning passion.

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Angels might hate the Astros as much as Dodgers after benches-clearing incident

Dodgers fans haven't gotten over the 2017 cheating scandal, and nor should they. The Astros quite literally stole a World Series that should've been the Dodgers'. The Angels haven't had much of a reason to hate the Astros, even though they're in the same division, because they haven't been competitive in over a decade. Well, this incident will add some fuel to their division rivalry, even if the hatred isn't as extreme as Dodgers fans.

The Angels are likely going to finish under .500 again this season, but Neto is one of the few players Angels fans can actually get excited about. The last thing they want to see is him get hurt after getting hit by a 95 mph fastball.

Neto also doesn't want to get hurt, and considering he's been hit by Brown before, it makes sense that he's as angry as he is. At the end of the day, if pitchers can't locate inside, they shouldn't throw the ball there. Intent doesn't matter at a certain point. Brown clearly has trouble throwing inside on Neto.

Does Neto crowd the plate? Sure, but it's not as if he's doing something illegal. He's in the batter's box and is expecting pitches to cross the plate, especially coming from an ace like Brown, who had hit just two batters all season before plunking Neto. Brown might want Neto to back off the plate, but Neto doing so would make him easier to pitch to.

No matter whose side you're on, what's indisputable is that something is brewing between these two AL West foes. With Neto and Brown in the same division likely for the next decade, there could be more fireworks to come.