Things got a little heated at Oracle Park on Wednesday afternoon.
The benches and bullpen were completely cleared during the fourth inning of the Philadelphia Phillies' 6-1 win over the San Francisco Giants. While there were no fistfights or ejections from the incident, it was still very disruptive.
The altercation began when Giants pitcher Kyle Harrison threw two fastballs high and inside to Bryce Harper at bat. The second was nearly identical to the first, and Harper was visibly shaken up at the plate. Everyone quickly reacted and slowly ran out onto the field.
Harper wasn't even involved in the brawl — he stayed near home plate while everyone else worked it out.
“I would have loved to go back. Why didn't I go?” Harrison said. Via NBC Sports Giants“We're trying to get guys out there and that's where we thought we could get him. We might have leaked a little too much.” [far] Really, just focusing on the baseball side of things and trying to execute.”
Harper said after the game that he “wasn't all that upset” about the pitch, he just didn't want to get hit.
“He didn't mean it,” Harper said. “He just didn't want to get punched in the face again, that's all. Getting punched in the face is not fun, that's all.”
The incident occurred after Harper became a bit irate in the dugout after striking out in the first inning and in what was already a heated game.
You probably weren't counting, but Wednesday actually marked the seventh anniversary of Harper's violent brawl with Hunter Strickland at Oracle Park while playing for the Washington Nationals. Harper lunged at Strickland on the mound after being hit by a pitch, marking the latest episode in a feud between the two players.
This brawl was arguably much worse than Wednesday's bench-clearing incident.
While he may have been trying to pitch inside, it seems unlikely Harrison was intentionally targeting Harper, given the circumstances. Harrison, who had already struck out Harper twice, had two strikes and two outs against him at the time of the incident. Harper eventually got out on a grounder to shortstop to end the inning.
The Phillies were leading 2-0 at this point, and in the fifth inning, Nick Castellanos hit a two-run homer to add two more runs, and in the eighth inning, Kyle Schwarber and Harper each hit one-run RBI to add two more runs, giving the Phillies a 6-1 victory, ending a three-game losing streak and preventing a series win in San Francisco.
