MLB hands out multiple suspensions for Rays-Brewers brawl
Players from the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays work out their feelings
Major League Baseball announced several suspensions Wednesday in relation to Tuesday night’s confrontation between the Rays and the Brewers. Milwaukee right-handers Freddy Peralta and Abner Uribe got suspensions of five and six games, respectively. Their manager Pat Murphy got a two-game suspension. Outfielder Jose Siri of the Rays got three games. All four parties also received undisclosed fines.
Murphy is serving his suspension starting Wednesday but both of the Milwaukee hurlers are appealing, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Siri will also be appealing his suspension, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.
Siri homered off Peralta in the third inning and then was plunked by Peralta in the sixth. The umpires conferred and ejected Peralta, despite the fact that no warnings had been issued in the game to that point. Murphy objected to the ejection and he was also ejected.
Siri came up again in the eighth with Uribe pitching. Siri hit a grounder to Rhys Hoskins at first base, who flipped the ball to Uribe as he covered first and recorded the out. Siri and Uribe exchanged words by first base before Uribe took a swipe at Siri. The two tried throwing punches towards each other as various parties tried to intervene with the benches emptying. Both were ejected after the fracas died down.
Adam McCalvy and Adam Berry of MLB.com spoke to the relevant parties after the game and relayed some natural differences of opinion about what transpired. Crew chief Chris Guccione said the umpires thought it was “clear-cut” that Peralta intentionally threw at Siri, though the pitcher denied it.
“How many homers did I give up in seven years? A lot, and I never did something after,” Peralta argued. “It’s my first time I got ejected from a game in seven seasons and there’s no reason for me to hit him.”
For his part, Siri denied that he celebrated his home run in any outlandish way.
“I didn’t take too much time,” Siri said through Rays interpreter Manny Navarro. “I hit the ball, took a couple of steps and then I started running like normal.”
As for the later incident at first base, Uribe offered his interpretation.
“There were some words shared that didn’t have much to do with the game,” Uribe said, “that probably shouldn’t have been shared there in that exchange.”
His sparring partner described it slightly differently.
“When I went to first base, I just went there normal, and he kind of hit me on the shoulder,” Siri said. “So I asked him why did he do that? And he just said, ‘Because I felt like it.’”
As mentioned, Murphy is serving his suspension immediately while the players are all appealing. Their suspensions will be held in abeyance until the appeal process is complete, though players in this situation will often drop an appeal at a convenient time, such as when they were planning to have an unrelated day off.
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