A much anticipated series is upon the fans of both the Oakland Athletics and the Kansas City Royals. When these teams met in mid-April, no one would have expected the dramatics that would ensue. The American League Champions Kansas City Royals had emerged as somewhat of a darling in the baseball world but seemed to have a collective target on their back and chip on their shoulder when they met the Oakland Athletics in that early series. Leading up to the throw down in Kansas City, six Royals players had been hit by pitches 13 times. But, it wasn’t the A’s out looking for a fight.
To recap briefly, during the first game of the series, Brett Lawrie slid hard into second to break up a double play and injured KC shortstop Alcides Escobar in the process. While the slide wasn’t pretty, Lawrie maintained that he was just doing what he could to avoid the DP, which is his usual style of all-out play. Lawrie said he later texted an apology to Escobar and was met with less than kind remarks, this denied by Escobar. A number of Royals fans jumped all over Lawrie on social media, as many continue to do, and added fuel to the fire for a situation ripe for disaster.
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The next day, Lawrie was hit by Yordano Ventura, almost expectedly, and he calmly took his base. The pitcher was ejected and things seemed to blow over until the final game of the series when Oakland A’s pitcher, Scott Kazmir, plunked Lorenzo Cain leading to ejections of Royals’ manager Ned Yost and the Royals’ pitching coach. Intentional? Who knows for sure, but the events later in the game undoubtedly were and this is the lasting memory left in the minds of Oakland Athletics’ fans.
In the eighth inning, Royals’ reliever Kelvin Herrera threw a 100 MPH fastball behind the head of Lawrie. This infuriated Lawrie, and rightly so. It goes beyond a little on-field skirmish, this is someone’s health and livelihood at stake. Lawrie reminded us, “This is a game. This isn’t going up there and trying to hurt people.” Major League Baseball responded with a five-game suspension for Herrera, thought by some of Lawrie’s teammates to be light.
Fast-forward two months and a series in Oakland is about to be played. The Royals have claimed first place in the AL Central, atop the entire American League, while the Oakland Athletics have risen just above the AL West cellar, even if just by one thousandth of a percentage point. They’re the hottest they’ve been all year, winning their last five and fresh off a sweep of the Texas Rangers. Right now the A’s are just concerned with playing good baseball and propelling themselves back into contention once again.
Lawrie said he expects no carryover from the April series in KC. Royals players echoed that sentiment and Yost said, “It’s over.” That all remains to be seen.
In the words of some pop star, “Cause baby now we got bad blood. You know it used to be mad love.”