One day removed from the violent brawl between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, MLB has handed down some stiff punishment to Joe Kelly and Tyler Austin.
Kelly is getting a six-game suspension for hitting Austin in the back, while Austin is getting five games for charging the mound. Both players are also receiving undisclosed fines, along with Red Sox manager Alex Cora, Yankees third base coach Phil Nevin, CC Sabathia, Xander Bogaerts, Marco Hernandez and Dustin Pedroia.
Both Kelly and Austin have opted to appeal these suspensions and will play Thursday night.
https://twitter.com/lindseyadler/status/984548574859005952
Needless to say, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred isn’t messing around and wants to nip this in the bud before things truly could get out of hand. Boston and New York will be seeing plenty more of each other this year, so it’s imperative to make this kind of statement to keep things from escalating further.