The Yankees got into a testy, bench-clearing fight with Toronto last night, and the Blue Jays pointed the finger squarely at hot-headed Bombers catcher Jorge Posada as the cause, with a blatant elbow to pitcher Jesse Carlson that set off the brawl.
“Posada, when he went by and hit Jesse, I guess that started the whole ruckus right there,” said Jays manager Cito Gaston.
“There was intent,” said catcher Rod Barajas. “He saw Jesse, and on the way by he threw an elbow. That’s what created the whole situation.”
Posada was seething after Carlson threw behind him earlier in the eighth inning, warning the pitcher, “You don’t want to do that.”
When Posada scored on Brett Gardner’s double, he elbowed Carlson — who was standing in the wrong place to ostensibly be backing up the plate — and it was on.
After home-plate ump Jim Joyce tossed Posada, Carlson followed the catcher to curse him. Posada wheeled around and swung at Carlson, eventually dragging him down under a quickly expanding pile of bodies.
“Once he went across the plate and threw that elbow at me, I was like ‘let’s go.’ When we were wrestling, we both went down to the ground near their dugout. I got trampled on,” said Carlson, who ended up with a walnut-sized welt on the left side of his forehead. “I’m not sure who it was, but I was trying to cover up and somebody moved my hands out of the way and got in a shot.”
After seeing Edwin Encarnacion — who’d homered in the fourth — and Aaron Hill get hit, Carlson was unapologetic about throwing behind Posada. He proclaimed his innocence, claiming “No, I’m not going to apologize. No need to. It was just a fastball inside, and I yanked a pitch.”
Barajas wrestled with Shelley Duncan, and video appeared to show John McDonald punching Joe Girardi in the face — though he insisted with a straight face, “It definitely wasn’t me.”