See the Vicious Punch That Has the Whole Sports World Buzzing Today

This is usually the time of the sports calendar every year where all eyes are on the NBA and NHL playoff games that are rapidly approaching their championship rounds. With no football being played and college sports done for the year, the main heat on baseball won’t even turn up for several months.

But that didn’t stop a shocking fight in a game Sunday from being the most talked about thing in the sports world today.

During the afternoon game yesterday between the Toronto Blue Jay and the Texas Rangers — a rematch from last season’s playoffs that featured truly one of the most insane, heartbreaking games in MLB history — Jose Bautista of Toronto caught a vicious right hook from Texas’ Rougned Odor.

The fracas occurred in the eighth inning, moments after Bautista got drilled by a pitch by Matt Bush of the Rangers. On the subsequent at-bat, Bautista slid into second base, nearly taking out Odor on a routine double play ball, and the fireworks exploded immediately. “This has been brewing since last October!” one of the in-game announcers can be heard saying as both benches cleared.

Unsurprisingly, both Bautista and Odor were swiftly ejected from the game.

“I was pretty surprised,” Bautista said of the incident after the game. “I mean, obviously, that’s the only reason that he got me and he got me pretty good, so I have to give him that. It takes a little bit bigger man to knock me down.”

The manager of the Blue Jays John Gibbons said of the exchange, “It was ugly and unfortunate. To me, it was gutless. The other 29 teams, they come at you right away, but to wait until the end, it just sort of tells you something. Everybody is going to say, `Oh, it was a one-run game. The ball got away.’ That ain’t going to fly.”

Without a doubt, the cut still runs deep in Texas from the infamous bat flip in game 5 of last year’s playoffs. Bautista drilled a three-run homer and in dramatic and enthusiastic fashion showboated his way to victory, as you can see in the above video.

Watch the above videos from MLB.

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[image via screengrab]