BALTIMORE — For more than three weeks now, Baltimore Orioles And New York Yankees baseball team has been in general decline — not enough to knock them out of the top two spots in the AL East, but still disappointing.
When they met in another tense series before the All-Star break, emotions finally boiled over.
Orioles outfielder Heston Kjerstad hit in the helmet by a 97 mph pitch from a Yankees player Holmes Clayand the benches were empty at the end of the ninth inning for New York 4-1 win Friday evening.
“There was just chirping back and forth,” the Yankees hitter Aaron Judge said. “I know we had a lot of their guys get hit. They caught us. It looked like they were boiling over there.”
With one out, Holmes’ pitch hit Kjerstad around the rim of his ear. After a brief delay, Kjerstad was able to get up but was out of the game. Then things got worse, with Orioles manager Brandon Hyde walking toward the New York dugout and pointing, at which point, the Yankees catcher Austin Wells tried to restrain Hyde but the bench and bullpen were empty.
There was some shoving before cooler heads prevailed. Hyde was kicked out.
“My guy just got hit in the ear,” Hyde said. “I was upset and then I saw them in the shelter and they were waving at me and yelling at me, so I didn’t appreciate it at the time.”
Hyde said the youngster was being tested. He was not allowed to speak to reporters after the match.
The Yankees have made it clear they hope Kjerstad is OK.
“You never try to hit someone in the head … that high up,” Holmes said. “Definitely hoping (Kjerstad) will be OK tomorrow, but it was one of those bad conditions, and I tried to throw a sinker ball in there through the front door and it just clipped.
“This move wasn’t my normal swing, it just pulled it back and it cut into him. It wasn’t trying to do anything.”
It rained late in the game, which could affect the grip of the bat and ball.
“Two good teams are in the mix,” he said. Gerrit Colestarter on the mound for New York. “Both clubs were pitching inside. It was very wet out there tonight. Anybody out there knows it was hard to hold the baseball tonight. But with that, the guy got hit in the head. So, understandably, Brandon was upset, and he was protecting his players.”
In eight games between the teams this season, 10 Baltimore batters and three New York batters have been hit by pitched balls. In a June series at Yankee Stadium, Judge and Gleyber Torres was beaten in the opening game, and the next night the Baltimore star Gunnar Henderson was thrown away.
At the time, it looked like the Orioles and Yankees were the only real contenders in the division, but since that series, Baltimore has an 8-12 record and New York has a 6-13 record. The first-place Orioles lead the Yankees by one game but are now just 5½ games ahead of Boston.
“We played really good baseball in that first inning and just wanted to see us finish the inning on a good note,” Hyde said. “We’re struggling a little bit right now. We’re going through some tough times offensively.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
