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Pitcher uses baseball as weapon during wild minor league brawl

Here’s one you don’t see too often — thankfully. A relief pitcher raced out of the bullpen Sunday night during a minor league brawl, baseball in hand, and threw it a player on the other team.

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It was part of an ugly incident between the Dayton Dragons and West Michigan Whitecaps, a pair of Single-A teams playing in the Midwest League East Division. The Whitecaps are a Tigers affiliate and the Dragons are a Reds affiliate.

West Michigan pitcher Eduardo Jimenez threw the ball at Dragons pitcher Jesse Stallings from about 15 feet away. It hit Stallings in the leg, but obviously could have been more much dangerous had it be thrown somewhere else.

Let’s pause to look closer at what happened. Here’s Jimenez, mid-throw, follow by a surprised reaction from one of the Dragons players:

Whitecaps reliever Eduardo Jimenez mid-throw. (MILB)
Whitecaps reliever Eduardo Jimenez mid-throw. (MILB)
Here's the surprised reaction from one of the Dayton Dragons. (MILB)
Here's the surprised reaction from one of the Dayton Dragons. (MILB)

Now here’s the whole thing in GIF form:

(MILB)
(MILB)

You might be wondering what started all this. Well, it was another seemingly out-of-bounds moment from the Whitecaps. Jose Siri of the Dragons stole second base and ended up with Whitecaps shortstop Daniel Pinero on top of him. When Pinero got up, he stepped on Siri’s ankle. If you watch from this angle, it looks pretty deliberate.

Siri, as you imagine, took issue and pushed Pinero and that’s when the benches cleared. All of that — while unfortunate — isn’t exactly out of the ordinary for baseball. The actions of Jimenez, however, are 100 percent shocking.

Oddly, he wasn’t ejected from the game, according to reports from the scene. Nonetheless, an MILB.com story says, “[Jimenez’s] actions were captured on video and will undoubtedly be reviewed by league and Minor League Baseball officials.”

Seems like a good bet that Jimenez has a lengthy suspension ahead.

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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!