Rougned Odor punches Jose Bautista, benches clear in Blue Jays-Rangers game

Yahoo ^ | 5/15/2016 | Yahoo

[Fai Mao]

Roogned Odor (Pronounced O'Door) nearly knocks Jose Bsutista out after Bautista ries to give Odor a career ending knee injury

[GSWarrior]

If my name was Rougned Odor I’d be a little testy too.

[dfwgator]

Certainly more hits than Prince Fielder.

[Hebrews 11:6]

I haven’t seen it, either. But as my dear departed father used to say, “Never throw the first punch, but always throw the last one.”

[Ransomed]

Well, Bautista was either being held back or held up by Beltré. Either way he wasn’t struggling too much. I think Beltré did everyone involved a favor there.

Freegards

[Hebrews 11:6]

Notice that Bautista respects Beltré enough, even as an opponent, that he let him completely control him. Beltré is widely respected, and I've always loved Beltré, since he came up with my Dodgers. He's well on his way to the Hall of Fame--he'll finish as a Gold Glove 3B with 450 HR and 3,200 hits.

Interesting note about him: his greatest year was when he hit 48 homers for the Dodgers in 2004, which is many more than he's hit in any other season (otherwise, his career high is 36). He's always been more of a line-drive hitter, except that one year. The reason he hit so many in '04 was an injury: he hurt his leg, which made it difficult to transfer his weight to his left side during his swings. As a result, he hung back more on his right side, which caused him to uppercut more than usually, and so 48 balls went out of the yard. He parlayed that year into a big free-agent signing with the Mariners, and 3B hasn't been right with the Dodgers since.

[Ransomed]

Agree about the HoF and Beltré. When is the last time an opposing player held someone like that and no one tried to sneak a lick into either one? Like you said, even Bautista wasn’t really trying to get loose of him. If he was holding him up or holding him back, I suspect it worked because it was Beltré doing it and it seemed like players on both teams were like ‘huh, I’ll just let him do his thing there.’

Freegards

[Svartalfiar]

Replays show after the slide which Odor avoided deftly Odor took great offence and this may go back to the bat flip from last years playoffs. Odor then went after Bautista shoving him with both arms. Bautista then put his arm up in what looks like a defensive posture but to no avail as Odor punches Bautista in the face and the two team benches cleared. Not sure if Bautista said something or not but in terms of visuals it looks like Odor started the physical confrontation.

Bautista started the fight when he tried to tackle Odor. The bat flip is considered very rude in baseball, but trying to seriously injure another player is easily grounds for getting punched in the face.