Montgomery doesn’t think tensions are high between Yanks and Rays
Despite what Aaron Judge said Thursday’ about tensions between the Yankees and Rays being high, Yankees pitcher Jordan Montgomery doesn’t think so.
In fact, Montgomery, who certainly stirred the pot Sunday when he hit Rays outfielder Austin Meadows twice, but wasn’t disciplined, thought the “high tensions” narrative was false.
“I think we’re just two competitive teams,” Montgomery said Friday before the two teams’ second matchup of the season. “I wouldn’t say there’s ‘tensions.’ That’s kind of built up in the media sometimes. I think we’re just trying to play baseball.
“Guys don’t want to get hit; pitchers don’t want to hit guys. I pitch inside and I lost two balls,” he explained of his outing in Tampa Bay, which started by hitting Meadows his first at-bat. “It just happens. It’s baseball. So we’re going to be professionals, do our job and play some good baseball.”
Two Yankees were also grazed by pitches in that game.
Judge explained the Yankees-Rays bad blood as a back and forth of players getting hit on both teams.
“We get hit, they get brushed back. If they get hit, we get brushed back,” Judge said Thursday.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone didn’t deny there was a heated rivalry, but he said tensions were high because both teams face each other many times during the season and both look to lock up the same position by the end of the year.
“When you’ve got two highly competitive teams, you’ve had some situations where guys have got hit or knocked down or things like that,” Boone said. “Both teams are good and competing for a lot. You know, sometimes it happens and it spills over and you kind of create that rivalry or whatever, but my hope, as it always is, is that it’s about the baseball between the lines.”
Boone also said he hoped no players would get hit through the remainder of this weekend’s series and that any fighting would be about trying to win the division title.
For as level-headed as the Yankees seem to have been about the rivalry, pointing to settling it as professionals during the game, the Rays perhaps have not been as cool because the Yankees haven’t been disciplined by the league for what they perceive dangerous pitching.
“Do I personally think the guy was trying to hit him? I do not. But this continues to roll over. ... There isn’t any recourse,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said Sunday after Montgomery’s pitches went up and in and hit Meadow’s shoulder. “Intent or not, most major league players are going to look at you and say it doesn’t feel good. Don’t care whether he did it on purpose or not, I don’t like it.”
More than 20 Rays batters have been hit by Yankees pitchers since 2018, when the back and forth seems to have started after the Rays’ Andrew Kittredge threw a fastball near Austin Romine’s head and CCSabathia retaliated by hitting Jesus Sucre and left the mound yelling at the Rays. By comparison, 16 Yankees have been hit by Rays pitchers in that span.
“When you’ve got two highly competitive teams, you’ve had some situations where guys have got hit or knocked down or things like that. Both teams are good and competing for a lot. You know, sometimes it happens and it spills over and you kind of create that rivalry or whatever, but my hope, as it always is, is that it’s about the baseball between the lines.”