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The Royals and White Sox took to arms tonight in a seventh-inning bench-clearing brawl in the middle of Kansas City's 3-2 extra-inning win. The incident stemmed from a ground ball back to Yordano Ventura off the bat of Adam Eaton in which Ventura and Eaton jawed at each other. Ostensibly Eaton yelled at Ventura for "quick-pitching" him, and Ventura responded with a four-letter expletive (hey, his English is improving!)
After an ensuing brawl in which five players were ejected, the Royals and White Sox had surprisingly calm and mature comments after the game.
The conflict may have begun in the top of the seventh, after Christian Colon lined into a double play.
Christian Colon said Jeff Samardzija began yelling at him after the lineout double play. "Get back to the dugout."
— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) April 24, 2015
Colon's reply: So I yell back. What your deal, bro? You’re not even in the game. No one is saying anything. No one’s trying to fight nobody.
— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) April 24, 2015
@michaelengel Zapruder-esque quality but as seen from FSKC broadcast: Samardzija yelling & pointing after Top 7th. pic.twitter.com/t7eJgdcohl
— Scott Keltner (@ScottEKeltner) April 24, 2015
After the game, Adam Eaton took the high road.
Eaton: "Sometimes boys will be boys and I think that was a situation where we had some excitement."
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) April 24, 2015
Eaton on KC: "They’ve earned everything they’ve gotten and now they want to keep it. You don’t expect anything less."
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) April 24, 2015
Chris Sale was mum.
Sale's take on incident: "I think everyone knows. I’m not going to sit here and put my foot in my mouth or spill the beans."
— Doug Padilla (@ESPNChiSox) April 24, 2015
Samardzija, on the other hand, was not available.
Samardzija was not available postgame. It was Sale, Eaton, Flowers and Robin who spoke.
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) April 24, 2015
Lorenzo Cain on Jeff Samardzija: "I'm not a big fan."
— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) April 24, 2015
Eric Hosmer spoke for the Royals and stepped up as a leader.
For those who missed what Hosmer said, he said they need to figure it out, not let emotions get the better and get back to playing baseball.
— David Lesky (@DBLesky) April 24, 2015
The Royals say they're closer than ever.
"We've got to have each other's backs," outfielder Jarrod Dyson explained. "If you come at us, we're not going to back down. We're going to keep playing the game our way."
Yordano says he has some growing up to do.
Ventura says via Guthrie that he recognizes that some of his actions are putting his team in an unfavorable light and he wants to work on it
— Chris Fickett (@ChrisFickett) April 24, 2015
Where was Ned during all of this?
Ned Yost somehow ended up at the bottom of the pile in the fight. "It felt like there was 20 guys sitting on top of me for a little while."
— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) April 24, 2015
Mike Jirschele, pushed down by Jeff Samardzija during the melee, is fine.
Mike Jirschele says he is OK. His son texted to ask if he felt like he was playing wishbone-formation football again.
— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) April 24, 2015
Ned's just trying to get through to the rascally kid.
Yost on Ventura maturing: "You know how many times my mom had to tell me things before I finally heard it?"
— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) April 24, 2015
How long will this last, Ned?
Yost on how this stops: "It just stops. Everybody gets tired of it. They feel like enough’s enough and just start playing baseball again."
— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) April 24, 2015