Boone, Thames get tossed as feud with Rays continues
At last the Yankees found a bit of normalcy in this weird 2020 baseball season. It’s not the pictures of fans around Tropicana Field, or the sound of a virtual crowd pumped into the ballpark.
Nope, the Yankees and
Rays got lost in their long-running feud again Saturday night.
After Aaron Judge, DJ LeMahieu and Luke Voit were pitched up and inside, forcing them to stumble off the plate, Yankees hitting coach Marcus Thames and manager Aaron Boone were tossed in the fifth inning by home plate umpire Vic Carapazza.
“He misinterpreted what Marcus said,” a tight-lipped Boone said was the reason they were tossed.
“We’ll just leave it at that. He should not have been thrown out of the game and that’s that.” It was Boone’s first ejection in 2020 and the 10th time in three years as the Yankees manager.
Aaron Judge was a little more forthcoming about the incident on Saturday and the long-running feud, admitting the bad blood for him stems
back to 2018 when Andrew Kittredge — who was on the mound in the fifth Saturday night — threw at former Yankees backup catcher Austine Romine in the head.
“He threw at Romine’s head a couple years ago, you know, and when someone throws at somebody’s head, usually you don’t forget that,” Judge said.
Actually, the feud dates back as far as spring training game in 2008, when a Yankees pitcher drilled then-top Rays prospect Evan Longoria. The heated rivalry has been fanned in recent years by CC Sabathia.
The now-retired hefty lefty stirred it up whenever he faced the Rays, using his final start of the season in 2018 to throw what was deemed by MLB to be a retaliatory pitch for the throw at Romine. He had to be separated on the field from former Rays outfielder Avasail Garcia because the two were jawing at each other on the field after an atbat.
“We don’t want anybody hit, not our teammates,” Gleyber Torres said. “So we just try to be focused. I mean, it’s a tough situation at the moment, but, I mean, we try to get those little things to get more motivation.”
It’s all part of the game, said Judge, who also seemed to send a warning of his own for
Sunday’s series finale.
“We have a lot of big power hitters that can drive the baseball so a lot of teams are really gonna try to back us off the plate. It’s something that we know, it’s something they have done for years now,” Judge said. “They want to try to come in and back us obviously kind of off the plate so it’s just something we got to deal with.
“I know our pitchers are there to protect us.”
HIGASHIOKA HURT
After Kyle Higashioka waited for years for his shot in the big leagues, the 30-yearold finally made his Opening Day roster this season. A dozen games into a coronavirusshortened season, Higashioka is already off the active roster because of injury. The backup catcher was placed on the 10day injured list Saturday with a strained right oblique.
“He’ll get an MRI on the off day when we get back. I knew he had a little bit of an issue with it Thursday, but thought it was going to be something he’d work through and then yesterday it was just a little tighter than we’re comfortable going with as a hitter,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “So decided we need to do this and hopefully try and get out ahead of it and keep it as something that’s a short term thing. Obviously, an oblique can be a long thing, so hopefully we got a little bit ahead of it. So we’ll just have to see the next couple days unfold.”
CHAPMAN CLOSING
Aroldis Chapman threw his second bullpen Saturday at the alternative training site in Scranton. If the closer comes through feeling good, he is expected to throw to live hitters early this week.
A six-time All-Star, Chapman posted a 2.21 ERA and 37 saves in 60 appearances last season. He was the back end of a bullpen built to shut down games after the fifth inning.
In his place, Zack Britton has five saves in five opportunities.