Sox skip’s gestures at Nevin ‘bush league’

If there’s a carryover from the latest Fenway Park brawl, it might have more to do with Red Sox manager Alex Cora’s dismissive hand gesturing toward Yankees third base coach Phil Nevin than Joe Kelly’s fastball to Tyler Austin’s ribs.

Well, that and the “chicken-(bleep)” way Kelly carried out his retaliation.

I spoke to two people on Thursday morning, a former manager and a former player who have been involved in their share of brawls, and having seen the video, they believed the Yankees would take offense at what happened in Boston on Wednesday night.

Neither person wanted to be quoted by name because each is still employed by a major-league club, but both had strong opinions on the matter.

“That was bush-league stuff,” the former manager said, speaking of Cora. “You don’t disrespect the other coaching staff like that. Nevin is a well-respected guy in the game, a former No. 1 pick … the guy had a good career. What has Cora done? He’s a first-year manager, he’s not Mike Scioscia.

“I don’t know what was said, but Cora was waving Nevin away like, ‘you’re not on my level.’ And (Cora) was back in the dugout by then. It looked like that got (Aaron) Boone fired up, and I don’t blame him.

“You do that to someone on my staff, and we’re going to have a problem. So that’s what I think will lead to more bad blood at some point.”

The former player, who admittedly has some old Yankee bias, agreed.

“Cora was out of line from what I saw,” the player said. “Players look out for their coaches. They’re not going to forget that.

“The other part is you don’t like that Kelly tried to get cute and hide his intention to hit the guy. He waits until the second pitch, and when he misses him, he waits until after another pitch before hitting him.

“That’s chicken-(bleep) stuff. Don’t play that game, like you’re trying to lull the kid into thinking everything is OK, and then you ambush him. That doesn’t sit well with guys.”

In fact, Giancarlo Stanton made that point in the Yankee clubhouse afterward, telling reporters that if Kelly wanted to plunk Austin, “do it on the first pitch.”

Which, freely translated, meant: have the guts to do it the right way.

Between that and Cora’s antics, the former player said this was more than a simple retaliation.

“There’s a lot more there than a guy getting drilled for spiking the second baseman,” he said. “Teams are going to retaliate for that. Whether it was intentional or not, you don’t go after somebody’s leg with your spikes up like that and not expect to hear about it from the other team.”

It’s true; Austin’s slide was the type that almost always provokes a reaction of some kind. The Red Sox may be more sensitive to it after Manny Machado’s late slide into Dustin Pedroia last year caused all sorts of internal chaos about how they handled it, but anytime you stick your spikes into someone’s leg, as Austin did to Brock Holt, it’s going to cause a problem.

Naturally the Yankees were going to defend Austin, but if they saw the replay I have to think that, at least privately, some probably understood the Red Sox reaction.

Had Austin merely clipped Holt with his foot, turning his spikes down or away, as players usually do in that case, there would have been no issue.

Instead, I thought Hall of Famer Chipper Jones, on Twitter, spelled out what is probably a pretty universal reaction among players:

“U slide in with ur spikes up and catch a piece ur gonna get thrown at young fella. That’s how baseball works. It polices itself, whether people like it or not. That will never change. Love the spirit in both squads, though.”

Yes, bottom line, whatever side you take on the slide or the plunking, the brawl is great for The Rivalry, which had become far too laid back since the Red Sox started winning championships back in 2004, the same year Jason Varitek started that memorable brawl with Alex Rodriguez at Fenway.

Suffice it to say this will ratchet up the intensity once again. Maybe not to the level when Pedro Martinez was constantly throwing at Yankee hitters, or sending Don Zimmer sprawling in that infamous 2003 postseason brawl, but higher than anything we’ve seen in years.

The question is: will there be more fireworks?

Both people I talked to believed the Yankees would retaliate, though perhaps not immediately.

“That’s one of those where you might decide to pick your spot,” the former manager said. “They’re behind in the standings, they need to win the series. You’re not going to risk losing your starter (Sonny Gray) early in the game by drilling somebody.

“You might wait until you’re on more even footing, maybe wait until they come to New York. But you never know, maybe Boone wants to set a tone as a new manager and take care of it right away.

“You have to have a feel for how your players feel about it, so I’m really interested to see how he handles it.”

He’s not the only one. Good to have some bad blood back between the Yanks and Sox.