Gary Sanchez Runs Amok In Melee, Tigers Respond
By: Will Burchfield
@burchie_kid
There were peacemakers in Thursday's brawl between the Tigers and Yankees, and there were flamethrowers.
Gary Sanchez?
He fits in the latter department.
When Miguel Cabrera and Austin Romine took each other down and the dugouts poured onto the field, Sanchez ran into the fray looking for blood. First he found Cabrera, who already had several bodies on top of him, and delivered a punch somewhere around Cabrera's head.
Cabrera, though, didn't consider it a sucker punch.
"I don't care if he punched me on the ground. You guys can say whatever you want, but he can do whatever he wants. If he wants to punch me again, he's gotta be face to face," Cabrera said.
Later, Sanchez found Nicholas Castellanos, who was also tangled up with other people, and socked him in the face.
Castellanos declined to single anyone out when asked who jumped him.
"If you wanna know, you can just go look at the tape. I'm not here to throw anybody's names out there. The whole world can see what happened," said Castellanos.
But he was clearly upset that he was taken advantage of while trying to play the role of peacemaker.
"I went in there for one purpose, and that was to break up Miggy and Romine," Castellanos said. "If you go look at (the tape), how many punches did I throw? Zero. And I got yanked off and I had five people on top of me and I'm getting drilled from all angles as somebody who's not throwing any punches."
"So," he said, as to whether or not Sanchez had thrown a cheap shot, "you guys be the judge of that."
As for Sanchez's perspective, he told reporters, "You know, everything happened pretty quick. I was in the dugout, looked up and saw Romine rolling on the floor with the other guys. At that moment, just instinct takes over because you wanna defend your teammate. That's your family out there."
Brad Ausmus was the first person to try to pull Sanchez off Cabrera, who was face down beneath a heap of bodies. He was worried Sanchez might swing at him in the process.
"I think he wanted to throw a punch at me when I was pulling him off. Thank god someone grabbed him from behind because he might have knocked me into the stands," said Ausmus.
Both Cabrera and Romine were ejected after the brawl, but Sanchez was not. Castellanos understands why.
"It's tough with the umpires because there's so much stuff going on. Hopefully when the video comes out and they see everyone's actions, the proper (suspensions) are handled accordingly," Castellanos said.
Ausmus agreed.
"It's hard for umpires to see when it's a big mass of humans and there's bodies everywhere. Other than what was happening in front of me with Sanchez and Miggy and (Aaron) Judge, I really couldn't see what was going on around me. I could have gotten my clock cleaned from behind, quite frankly, and I wouldn't have known who the heck did it," Ausmus said.
