Rays-Brewers escalates from ejections to benches-clearing fracas

MILWAUKEE -- In the box score, it was an 8-2 Brewers win over the Rays, with a homer and four RBIs for Willy Adames, Freddy Peralta pitching a one-hitter into the sixth inning and Milwaukee snapping a three-game losing skid at American Family Field on Tuesday night.

But the box score told only a sliver of the story. Brewers pitchers Peralta and Abner Uribe, manager Pat Murphy and Rays center fielder Jose Siri were all ejected as part of two separate incidents on a night when punches were thrown and benches cleared.

“As a team, we’re fine. We’re good,” Peralta said. “We’ve been playing the game the right way. But there’s little things that are going to happen in this game all the time. Things we can’t control.”

For both teams, emotions have been running high. The Brewers have seen prominent calls go against them in three straight games. The Rays have seen their bats go silent as they’ve lost four of their past five games, and eight of 11, in an exasperating stretch of their own.

Here’s how the night unfolded:

With one out in the sixth, Peralta was pitching with a 6-1 lead and had faced one more than the minimum -- that one being Siri, who’d homered off Peralta back in the third and watched the baseball sail a Statcast-projected 452 feet before rounding the bases.

When Siri batted again with the bases empty in the sixth, Peralta’s 3-0 offering hit him on the left leg. That’s when it started to get interesting.

Siri said he didn’t know if Peralta hit him on purpose, but Rays manager Kevin Cash said the sudden hit-by-pitch “raises suspicion,” especially considering how Peralta had been commanding the ball to that point. Cash asked the umpires, led by crew chief Chris Guccione -- who happened to be working home plate -- to discuss the pitch.

They did, and Peralta was ejected for the first time in his career.

Cash called it “the right decision.”

Peralta said, “I think it was the wrong decision.”

Guccione explained his thinking to a pool reporter.

“So Siri hit a home run -- a pretty good home run … and it was a first-pitch home run,” Guccione said. “So OK, he ran the bases, whatever, and nothing was really said that we noticed. Then you go to the sixth inning, a 3-0 count, and the pitch that hit Siri went right at him.

“You put what happened previously in the game together, and we get together as a crew and we discuss all the events, and we determined as a crew that Peralta was intentionally throwing at Siri. And with that comes an ejection.”

In Guccione’s view, it was a “clear-cut” call. Murphy disagreed, and when he objected, the Brewers’ skipper was ejected as well.

Three relevant questions weren’t immediately clear to the 21,124 fans on hand.

1. Did Peralta think that Siri showboated on his third-inning home run, and was that part of it?

No, Peralta said. He’d seen video of Siri rounding the bases the same way.

“How many homers did I give up in seven years? A lot, and I never did something after,” Peralta said. “It’s my first time I got ejected from a game in seven seasons and there’s no reason for me to hit him.”

“I didn't take too much time,” Siri said through Rays interpreter Manny Navarro. “I hit the ball, took a couple of steps and then I started running like normal.”

2. Since Peralta had previously grazed Rays DH Harold Ramírez’s jersey with a pitch in the fifth inning, and Brewers first baseman Rhys Hoskins was hit by a pitch as he fell to the dirt to avoid a wayward slider from Jacob Lopez in the bottom half, were either of those moments suspicious?

No, said Guccione.

3. Had the umpires issued any warnings to that point in the game?

They had not, Guccione said.

“There are three options: You can do nothing, you can warn and you can eject,” Guccione said. “Those are our three options. In this situation where we got together as a crew and determined that it was intentional, our only option is to eject in this situation.”

Said Peralta: “I wasn’t trying to hit him, but the home-plate umpire said, ‘Hey, Freddy, you’re out.’ I got so mad, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get everything worse. I was already out. I don’t know the reason that they took me out of the game like that.”

With Peralta and Murphy back in the clubhouse, the game continued, with the Brewers growing their lead to 8-2 by the eighth. That’s when, with prized 23-year-old Uribe on the mound, Siri hit a slow groundout to first base. Uribe covered for the out, and he and Siri exchanged words after brushing by each other at first base.

“There were some words shared that didn’t have much to do with the game that probably shouldn’t have been shared there in that exchange,” Uribe said.

“When I went to first base, I just went there normal, and he kind of hit me on the shoulder,” Siri said. “So I asked him why did he do that? And he just said, ‘Because I felt like it.’”

Whatever was said, it lit a spark.

Uribe took a right-handed swing at Siri and the benches cleared. Uribe was ejected. So was Siri, who responded with several punches of his own as players poured onto the field.

“It's players and teammates defending teams,” Cash said. “You don't want to see anybody get hurt. You don't want to see anybody miss time.”

“All I can say is I’m just glad nobody got seriously hurt,” Murphy said. “There's a lot of emotion in the game. I think the way the game ended [Monday] night, there was a lot of emotion. I think it lends itself to more emotion.”

Speaking of that, Tuesday’s events continued what has been a frustrating week at American Family Field.

In Sunday’s loss to the Yankees, a different crew admitted it erred when New York star Aaron Judge wasn’t called for interference when he raised his gloved hand as he slid into second base on a play that loomed large in a seven-run, game-breaking rally.

Then, on Monday night against the Rays, the Brewers appeared to score the tying run in the bottom of the ninth inning on a passed ball, only to have it waved off when Milwaukee’s Jake Bauers was cited for striking Rays catcher René Pinto’s helmet on his follow-through. In a conversation with a pool reporter, Guccione held firm that it was the right call by the letter of the rule.

Murphy was still smarting about that decision on Tuesday afternoon but wished to move on, declaring, “Onward.”

Guccione, likewise, said Tuesday night that one day’s drama had nothing to do with the next, saying, “We’ve got too many years and too many games to worry about that. Everybody is competitive. Everybody is trying to win. I understand.”

There’s more to come with this collection of main characters. The series concludes Wednesday afternoon.

“I just think it's best if we just leave it,” Murphy said. “There'll be a lot of commentary on it. I'm sure the league will look at it fully, and hope they get to look at it.”

“I don't think it's going to carry over. Hopefully not,” Randy Arozarena said through Rays communications director Elvis Martinez. “It's important for me that my teammates don't get hurt, and nobody gets hurt out there. Just come out and play another game.”