BALTIMORE (AP) — The benches cleared in Friday night's game between the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox when Luis Robert Jr. grounded into a double play to end the eighth inning and after Blaze Alexander’s hard slide into second base.
With Boston leading 1-0 and Alexander on first, Baltimore's Robert grounded to shortstop Trevor Story. Second baseman Nick Sogard took Story’s flip and fired to first to complete the play.
But as Alexander left the
area of second base, he said he started the war of words with Sogard, then Story and others.
“I thought, clean slide into the bag, and just getting stared at,” Alexander said. “Wanted to know why I’m getting stared at. And yeah, that’s really it.”
Replays showed that Alexander slid aggressively and continued past the bag after touching second, but didn’t appear to make contact with Sogard.
“He slid in pretty hard," Sogard said. "I didn’t have a problem with his slide, but we turned the double play. I was just looking back to see how far he went. I don’t know if he liked me looking back. But that was pretty much it.”
The benches and bullpens emptied, and Alexander motioned with his hands, asking fans to make more noise. No one was ejected.
Boston held on for the win after Aroldis Chapman worked the ninth to record his 399th career save and send Baltimore to its fourth straight defeat.
On a night the Orioles finished three games behind Cleveland for the final AL wild-card spot, with Toronto and Texas in between, Alexander admitted he hoped his words might spark a rally.
“Yeah, definitely," Alexander said. “Obviously, Chapman is coming in, you know. Get the crowd going a little bit. You never know. You score two there, we win, and it looks real good. But it is what it is. Back to it tomorrow and we’ll be ready to go.”
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