Oh no, not again.
The Kansas City Royals have bad blood with more than just the Oakland Athletics.
After scrapping with the As for three straight games last weekend, the Royals had a bench-clearing brawl with the Chicago White Sox on Thursday night. Five players in total were ejected.
Tensions were already high after Royals starter Yordano Ventura hit White Sox slugger Jose Abreu on the left elbow with a pitch in the fourth inning. Chicago starter Chris Sale returned the favor, pelting Royals' Mike Moustakas in the shoulder-area an inning later.
But things really hit the fan during the seventh inning, when White Sox center fielder Adam Eaton lined a shot to Ventura. While throwing Eaton out, the Royals' pitcher hurled an expletive at him. An expletive you can make out quite easily via this Vine.
This led to a wild, bench-clearing scene, in which Chicago's Sale and Jeff Samardzija, along with the Royals' Ventura, Lorenzo Cain and Edinson Volquez were all tossed from the game. The brawl, in which plenty of punches were thrown and the body count only got higher and higher, made for some excellent shots on Twitter afterwards.
Perhaps this is the best overall sentiment of this latest Royals' scrap.
White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper's thoughts on it.
After the game, which ended in a 3-2 Royals' win in 13 innings, Eaton broke down the wild scene to ESPN.
"[Ventura] kind of, you can watch the video, but I think when he came at me with the two-step that he did, and then he said something, I was a little thrown back by it," Eaton said. "And then I had some words for him. He's a heck of a competitor, a heck of a pitcher. He wouldn't be where he is if he wasn't that way. I'm the same way. It just happened really quick. I'm sure if you asked him right now, he'll probably say no, he wished he didn't act like that or he wished he didn't react like that. But in the heat of the moment, you do some stupid stuff."
Ventura shared similar sentiments.
"It was a messy situation. I got the ground ball and was unable to control my emotions in that play, and it turned out ugly," Ventura said. "[Eaton] said something to me. I responded back to him. It wasn't my intention, but maybe he interpreted it from the way I fielded the ball."
Well, there aren't too many ways to interpret what Ventura said. It's safe to say that the Royals are by far the most-hated team in baseball right now.
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