The heated action didn’t stop after the Toronto Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals got into it on the field on Sunday. Yordano Ventura and Jose Bautista both took to Twitter after the bench-clearing madness subsided to continue airing their grievances.
Bautista got things rekindled when he fired off this tweet, saying he’d lost a lost of respect for Royals manager Ned Yost after hearing his post-game comments.
Just heard #NedYost comments about the game. Lost a lot of respect for that man today.
— Jose Bautista (@JoeyBats19) August 2, 2015
The comments in question here stem from Yost saying his pitchers weren’t intentionally trying to hit batters. Neither Bautista, nor many others, for that matter, would agree with such a statement. Kansas City has been ticking all sorts of people off this year for exhibiting some would say poor judgement in this arena.
In response to Bautista, Ventura also took to Twitter, though his posts have since been deleted. Thankfully, Jeff Passan of Yahoo! was kind enough to provide a recap:
“In those tweets, according to two people who read and translated them, Ventura said to Bautista: “We’ll meet again later and if you do that with me, you’ll see what I’m about. I don’t care about anybody. I used to respect you, but you’re a nobody. … You got lucky this time, but MLB doesn’t get canceled after this season. Keep running your mouth. … You need to stop giving signs. You’re gonna get it from me for being fresh and you really are a nobody.”
A couple of thoughts here.
Bautista is certainly not a nobody. With 1,158 career hits, including 269 home runs, he’s definitely a somebody. And furthermore, who uses the word “fresh” any more?
Now, as for the stealing signs accusation, perhaps Ventura has a point, though there’s really no way to prove it.
It’s a shame these two men won’t be seeing one another again this season, barring a shocking development in the playoff race. Toronto is six games behind New York in the American League East and doesn’t appear to be gaining steam.
Likely, this Twitter feud will fizzle and die before it ever has a chance to take another breath.
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Mike Stone