The San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers are archrivals, and tensions boiled over Monday during the first game of a three-game series.
Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner and Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig exchanged words before the teams’ benches and bullpens cleared after the end of the seventh inning. MLB shared video of Puig grounding out to Bumgarner and the ensuing scuffle:
Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times passed along the interaction between the two:
“I just ran,” Puig said, per MLB.com’s Jack Baer and Chris Haft. “He was looking in my direction. He asked me why I was looking in his direction, and I then asked him why he was looking at me. That’s it.”
“I didn’t hear what was going on. He tried to stare me down or something. That’s what it looked like to me,” Bumgarner said, according to Baer and Haft.
This is not the first time Bumgarner and Puig have gotten into an argument on the field. They exchanged pleasantries in 2014, after Puig hit a home run and celebrated with a bat flip:
On Monday, Puig notched the Dodgers’ only hit off Bumgarner, a two-out double in the second. The San Francisco ace tallied 10 strikeouts in seven innings before exiting, but the Giants bullpen surrendered two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning in a 2-1 loss.
“All I know is Yasiel took a check swing, ran hard down the baseline and didn’t say a thing. He heard something from Bumgarner and he responded. I know our guy didn’t initiate,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, per Baer and Haft.
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