MINNEAPOLIS — On the Richter scale of bench-clearing brawls, what happened a few days ago between the San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park barely nudged the needle.
But when it comes to what these Reds are this year and where they’ve come from since so many of them were rookies three years ago, it might yet qualify as a seismic moment before they’re done making noise this year.
“We’re confident in who we are,” said Matt McLain one of those 2023 rookies. “And (Spencer) Steer’s not gonna take any sh—. That’s the simple way to put it. That guy started it, and then (Steer) got hit. And then it was whatever happened after that happened.”
Two days of jawing during the home series against the Giants resulted in Steer getting intentionally hit by a pitch in his first trip to the plate after a verbal altercation with J.T. Brubaker the night before — and then the Reds’ Connor Phillips getting ejected in the eighth inning of that series finale when his second attempt finally hit Willy Adames on the leg. The game ended with Sal Stewart and Giants pitcher Erik Miller barking at each other after the final out, resulting in both benches emptying.
Players in the clubhouse afterward downplayed it. Most fans in attendance or watching on TV probably won’t remember it by May.
But the significance of a moment like that for a team like this wasn’t lost on longtime baseball insiders.
“Every team’s mantra gets to a point, especially when you’ve been playing together for a while, where you just decide collectively you’re not going to take it anymore,” said Reds broadcaster Jeff Brantley, the former All-Star closer.
Baseball history is filled with young, talented teams that get their fill of youthful struggles, then fight back. Sometimes literally. And often — if the talent is good enough — signaling another competitive level along the way.
“I think it takes two or three years in the big leagues to figure that out and get that attitude,” Brantley said. “But when you do it as a unit, it matters more, because then you’re all kind of fighting for one. I know that sounds cliche´, but that’s what it’s about.
It signals another competitive level when emotions
The young, talented and overlooked Tampa Bay Rays of 2008 brawled with the Yankees in a spring training game and later called that a signal for what followed: the first winning season in franchise history that year and a World Series appearance.
Reds fans may remember a game against the Cubs in 2014 in which Chicago first baseman Anthony Rizzo threw down his glove and stalked toward the Reds dugout, starting a bench-clearing incident over a series of tight pitches from Aroldis Chapman.
A year later, behind an emergent young core, the Cubs went from last place to 97 wins and the NLCS — winning the World Series a year after that.
“Rizz wanted to take on the whole dugout by himself,” said Kyle Hendricks, who made his debut that day in Cincinnati. “That set the identity for the future years.”
And Twins bullpen coach LaTroy Hawkins, the longtime big-league pitcher who started in Minnesota, said those homegrown Twins teams that won three straight division titles in the early 2000s had their moment against a veteran Blue Jays team when shortstop Cristian Guzman charged the mound after an inside pitch.
“That was the turning point right there,” Hawkins said. “Once you get a little bit more established you start to say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to accept certain things.’ “
Who knows whether the Reds will someday find anything similar in last week’s non-fight?
For now, it seems to at least suggest they know who they are.
“Good teams know they have each others’ backs,” Steer, another 2023 rookie, said the day after the incident. “They play for each other. You know your teammates have your backs when you see it in action.
“We have a really good team,” he said. “A lot of us came up together as rookies. Now we’re in our fourth year together. The feel in the clubhouse is we’re really tight, really close as a team. And obviously the play speaks for itself. We have a lot of talent.”
After Stewart and Miller were separated and the Reds headed to the road, they started landing punches — sweeping the Twins over the weekend, including back-to-back late-inning comebacks, and taking over sole possession of first place.
“We’re a confident group. We know we’re good. We play the game the right way,” veteran closer Emilio Pagán said. “This isn’t like a challenge to the Giants or anyone else. But we’re not going to back down from anybody, and we’re not going to apologize for that either.”
Whether a coincidence or not, the Reds are the first team in National League history to win its first 10 games of a season decided by two or fewer runs. They’re 3-0 in extra innings. And despite the fact they’re at or near the bottom of the majors in nearly every hitting category, leadoff man TJ Friedl said “the confidence we have in one-run games is incredible.”
He also said this clubhouse is closer than any of the teams the last few years that often bragged about their chemistry.
“These are friends, brothers,” Steer said.
“If you’re the manager, if you’re Tito Francona, that’s what you’re fighting for,” Brantley said. “You want them to put themselves together and go out there and no matter what (fight as a group). Because Elly ain’t gonna do it every day. The great players can’t do it every day.”
Said Francona: “I care how we play. I’m not worried about the other things. I don’t think they need to show me (signs). I believe in this group, and I like this group. When we go through sh—, whether it’s good, bad, in between, I’ll do it with them and try to have their back.”
Pagán said everyone involved in last week’s extracurriculars handled it the right way
“Nobody’s out there looking for a fight,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any malice behind anything that happened with the Giants. It’s just two teams playing hard baseball, trying to win a game, and things happened.
‘We understand where we’re at,” he added. “We understand being a playoff team last year, teams are going to give us their best effort when we play them. We look forward to those challenges.”
Brantley called last week’s incident “just a little bit of a statement against a team that has had a lot of playoff experience out there in San Francisco.”
Not to mention a big-revenue team with $100 million players and playoff veterans.
“You have to get to the point where you just say, ‘We’re not going to take it anymore,’ “ Brantley said. “What I want to see is when you’re playing the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers, you tell them you’re not gonna take it anymore.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Did Cincinnati Reds make ‘statement’ with confrontation vs. Giants
Reporting by Gordon Wittenmyer, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
