DETROIT -- Once slugger Miguel Cabrera wrestled Yankees catcher Austin Romine to the ground at home plate, an afternoon game at Comerica Park collapsed into total chaos.
All the testiness that had been building between Detroit and New York finally boiled over. The toll of Thursday's fury: 3 bench-clearing altercations, 8 ejections, 1 beaning and a lot of angry words.
"I'm sure there are going to be suspensions on both sides," Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said after a 10-6 loss.
The winning and losing pitchers -- Detroit's Alex Wilson (2-4) and New York's Dellin Betances (3-5) -- were among those tossed. So were Girardi and Tigers Manager Brad Ausmus.
James McCann and Justin Upton homered for Detroit, and Gary Sanchez went deep for the Yankees, but that all became secondary on a day when the umpires had their hands full trying to maintain order. Major League Baseball now figures to be busy, too, sorting out likely penalties that could especially hurt the playoff-contending Yankees.
The problems between these teams began well before Tommy Kahnle threw behind Cabrera in the sixth inning. Last month, they had a game at Yankee Stadium in which four batters were hit.
This time, Michael Fulmer hit Sanchez with a pitch in the fifth, an inning after Sanchez had homered for the fourth time in this three-game series.
Kahnle was ejected after his pitch behind Cabrera, and Girardi was tossed after he came out to argue.
The game was finally about to resume when Cabrera stepped toward Romine, and the New York catcher took off his mask. Cabrera gave him a two-handed push to the chest.
"He said, 'You have a problem with me?' And I said, 'This isn't about you,' " said Romine, whose brother Andrew plays for the Tigers. "And then he pushed me. It felt like he wanted a confrontation there and I just tried to defend myself the best I could."
Cabrera appeared to take a couple of swings at Romine, and the two ended up on the ground as players from both teams spilled onto the field. Sanchez later appeared to take a swing at someone at the bottom of the pile.
Cabrera and Romine were ejected.
Later, Yankees reliever Dellin Betances was ejected after he hit McCann in the helmet. Betances seemed to be indicating he had thrown a breaking ball instead of a fastball, and wound up shouting at the Tigers and the umps.
"I threw him out and that was to keep control of the game," umpire crew chief Dana DeMuth said. "And the reason why it took a minute or so, was because I wanted to get the players apart. Once I got Detroit going to their dugout and New York going to their dugout, then I informed him that he was ran."
"It wasn't necessarily of him intentionally beaning the batter, but to keep control of the situation, I deemed it necessary that he went," he said.
Although Cabrera vs. Romine was the peak of the hostilities, McCann's beaning was the most frightening.
"You don't want to see people hit in the head. You don't want to see fighting on the field," Cabrera said. "But people have to understand we're human."
Sports on 08/25/2017