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Benches clear, tweets fly as Astros-Rangers rivalry turns into a Texas-sized tussle

Mike Oz

The Houston Astros and Texas Rangers already don’t like each other, mostly because they have to share a state and seem to battle often for the AL West crown. So Monday night, in their first meeting of 2017, it didn’t take much for these rivals to work themselves into a Texas-sized tussle.

The benches cleared in the sixth inning when Astros starter Lance McCullers Jr. threw a pitch behind Rangers slugger Mike Napoli. The Rangers had already hit two Astros hitters in the game and Napoli had homered earlier in the game off McCullers, so baseball being baseball, that’s just about enough evidence to call that a payback pitch.

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There wasn’t much actual action on the field once the benches cleared. Just the usual yelling and pushing. No Roughned Odor punches to the face or anything like that. Though he did look like he was ready to throw down if necessary.

The Rangers and Astros almost came to blows Monday night. (AP)
The Rangers and Astros almost came to blows Monday night. (AP)

After the game, since the unwritten rules are often unspoken too, McCullers denied throwing at Napoli on purpose. In fact, he joked about Napoli talking to him about his cologne. Because the only thing weirder than the unwritten rules is what players say when they’re asked about their on-field beefs.

Here’s McCullers, via MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart:

Napoli, for his side in this, seemed to be understanding about the notion of McCullers wanting to hit him. He just took exception to the placement of the pitch. Here’s what he said, via MLB.com’s Alyson Footer:

The Astros won the game 6-2, as McCullers racked up 10 strikeouts. Houston (17-9) remains the top team in the AL West while the Rangers (11-15) sit in the cellar. They’ll play three more in Houston this week, and don’t be surprised if the two teams clash again.

Astros second-year third baseman Alex Bregman already gave the Rangers some bulletin-board material when he tweeted this before the start of the series:

Spelling issues aside, his hashtag seems to stand for “Beat the [Stuff] Out Of The Rangers.” By the time the Rangers were in their clubhouse Monday, that tweet had already been blown up, printed out and made very visible.

Before the game, Rangers manager Jeff Banister playfully answered a question about the tweet by saying, “Who was it? Berkman?” — a reference to ex-Astros star Lance Berkman. Another Ranger, pitcher Keone Kela, said, “Somebody get the guy a dictionary.”

Eventually, Bregman apologized for the tweet, but didn’t delete it. He told reporters:

“I made a rookie mistake,” said Bregman, who went 1-for-3 with a run scored. “I shouldn’t have tweeted that out. It was more of just trying to fire up our team. I shouldn’t have put it on social media at all. They have a great team over there. I didn’t mean to offend anybody over there.

“As you can see, it’s a fun game any time you play them. They had our number last year. This year is a new year. Just a rookie mistake. I didn’t mean to offend anybody over there. It was more of just trying to motivate our team. Poorly-worded, obviously. I misspelled a word — another rookie mistake there.”

Now if someone on the Rangers throws a pitch behind Bregman this week, you’ll know why.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!