Postseason baseball often comes with some animosity and tensions flared in the Yankees series-clinching Game 4 victory over the Royals of the ALDS.
Royals second baseman Michael Massey grounded into an unassisted 3-6 double in the bottom of the sixth inning, however, the play ended with the benches clearing. Anthony Volpe threw a forearm at Maikel Garcia on his hard slide into second.
“The stakes are high,” said Volpe. “Everyone’s playing hard. Everyone’s trying to win. They’re playing for their season. So [Garcia] went in hard.”
Garcia got up into Volpe’s face and the shortstop patted him on the back a few times essentially shooing him away. Then public enemy No. 1 of Kansas City Jazz Chisholm Jr. started chirping back at Garcia leading the benches to clear.
Garcia has been a subject of controversy this series as well. Following the Royals’ Game 2 victory, the third baseman tweeted out “Don’t celebrate too early,” responding to a video of Carlos Rodon’s animated reactions to striking out the side in the top of the first. The 24-year-old followed up by tweeting “We don’t fear nobody.”
“I just felt like he tried to go and injure Volpe because he was being a sore loser,” said Chisholm He was talking a lot on Instagram and Twitter and stuff. I do the same thing, but I’m not gonna go and try and injure somebody if they’re winning a game. And I didn’t like that, so I told him, ‘We don’t do that on this side,’ and I’m always gonna stick up for my guys.”
Chisholm Jr. may have ignited the fire in this series as he said the Royals “just got lucky,” in their Game 2 victory. The third baseman heard boos all week from the crowd in Kansas City and likely won’t make any more fans after the “sore loser” comment.
Volpe — who was in the middle of the controversy — was one of the Yankees’ consistent bats in this series. The shortstop was 3-for-12 with four walks in the four-game set.
“I’m just trying to get my pitch and put a good swing on it. You can’t control the results, but I feel like if I keep doing that, then I can keep helping the team.”
The Yankees will be watching closely on Saturday night as they will get the winner of Game 5 between the Guardians and Tigers.
