MLB has punished several players and coaches who took part in the bench-clearing brawl between the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Angels on Sunday. This week, the league announced it has suspended Mariners players Jesse Winker (seven games), J.P. Crawford (five games) and Julio Rodríguez (two games). For the Angels, nine members of the team were handed suspensions, including manager Phil Nevin who got 10 games. The players who are suspended are Anthony Rendon (five games when he returns from IL and can’t be on the Angels bench for the next seven games), Andrew Wantz (three games), Ryan Tepera (three games) and Raisel Iglesias (two games). Angels coaches Dom Chiti, Ray Montgomery, Bill Haslemen and interpreter Manny Del Campo will also serve suspensions.
The incident began at the top of the second inning when Wantz threw a pitch at Winker’s leg. Winker got angry and attempted to confront Wantz at the mound. He then went after the Angels’ bench, which then led to both benches clearing. As the teams calmed down, Iglesias threw a bucket of sunflower seeds onto the field.
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“It’s not something that should be a part of Major League Baseball,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “Certainly, you can say, ‘Well, this should have happened or that should have happened.’ You can’t go back in time and change it. So there will be some suspensions coming and it’ll hurt, because there are players involved that play a lot for us and they do a really good job. And any time you lose a key guy in the lineup, it hurts.”
After the game, Winker was still angry about the incident. “If they throw [Wantz] out, it stops. If he hits me and they eject him, I go to first base. If the guy in the cast and their manager don’t talk, nothing happens. But they were talking, and I didn’t want to talk.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s done,” Winker said. “We’re just going to worry about next time we face them beating them. That’s all that matters. No one is here to ‘tough guy’ talk to the media and no one’s here to do this and do that or talk about fines, suspensions, whatever. That’s going to happen regardless, so we’re going to beat them.” MLB.com says all three Mariners players will appeal their suspensions. Tepera and Iglesias are the two Angels players who are planning to appeal.
