We lost this series but I bet those guys in that locker room feel pretty good about themselves even though they got swept (twice…UGH). I liked seeing Aki in there getting some swings, I would have loved to hear the audio on him during that scuffle…like him cussing guys out in Japenese. That would have been sweet. Seriously though, I like the fact that Navi, CC, and Gomes pounced on Coco. That was great. I suppose we’ll never see Coco Crisp in a Rays uniform anytime soon now will we?

Shields has to back up his teammate. Hitting the guy in the leg is fine. After that, it was handled poorly. Shields never should have swung at him. Once Navi got him on the ground, Gomes and the others piling on was unacceptable. MLB will come down hard on that so we’ll be suffering from these suspensions for awhile as they have to stagger them out.

Hit the guy, and then get him down to the ground if he goes after the pitcher. Punching is never acceptable and we deserve to get slammed by MLB for it.

You stick up for your teammates. Anything less is unacceptable.

CC, Aki, Gomes, and Shields are all going to be suspended. Luckily only one suspension at a time will be served.

I wouldnt be suprised if the guys respond well in Texas

Means We just kicked your ass in Japenese. Even if it wasn’t in the box score!

length wise…

I guess now we know why Shields was so upset when he hit Pedroia, he knew that he was still planning to hit Crisp. Crisp obviously took things to a level that the Rays weren’t expecting. But somehow this brawl just looked hackish, on the Rays part. Even though Crisp charged, and started the actual fight, it didn’t have the valiant team building feel like the pre-season fight against the yanks. Probably because we lost so badly and got swept. On another note, it was a bit disheartening to see CC keep swinging at those high fast balls.

Is that we significantly decreased our chances of winning an important, intra-division game with this stupid brawl, and that’s all that matters to me. I don’t care about any of this intangible “it fired the team up” crap. It sure as hell didn’t spur us on to victory today. Crisp is an idiot, and his actions yesterday and in quotes reflect that. There was no need to let this incident carry on into another day, however. Any rationale human being could see who was in the clear going into today.

But no, everyone had to get their testosterone set high, and the team’s performance suffered as a result. Our starting pitcher threw at an individual we knew was too dumb to think better of the matter, and to make it worse, he started throwing punches at him with his pitching hand. What happens if one makes contact and you break something? And then, on top of the strictly pragmatic elements of this brawl, you have the denigration of our image to deal with. Watching punches getting thrown, players getting ejected, and the Rays clearly placing a greater value on “getting even” then winning. We reduced ourselves to their level. When you reduce yourself to their level and start playing in the mud, the pig always wins.

And let’s take a look at where this incident left us. Our starting pitcher was gone from the game, and so we had to use nearly every available member of our bullpen in his place for the remaining seven innings of the game. So, having lost two straight games to our closest division rival and on the verge of a sweep, we are for all purposes going to give up on the third game and cede the division to Boston. That’s essentially the choice that was made, because you aren’t going to win replacing you No. 2 starter with seven innings of bullpen work. We put the “good feeling” of getting in a few punches on Crisp above the results on the field. That’s the type of decision losing teams make, not prospective playoff teams. We’re above that amateurish garbage.

Then, to top it all off, the consequences don’t end there! We have a taxed bullpen for a weekend road series in Texas, having strained every pitcher in three ineffective rotation outings. Then we have the suspensions of key players to look forward to, further taking away from our chances to win future games.

But more than anything else, we lost our class today. We had the moral superiority on the Duncan incident, and while Gomes’ actions in that case were similarly inadvisable, at least he was alone in that regard. The entire team as a whole didn’t partake in similarly classless actions, and the brawl was relatively peaceful compared to today’s. The consequences ended with Gomes being out for a couple days, and that was it. And we drew the most sympathy from the matter, having stuck up for a clean baseball play. That wasn’t the case here. Seeing four players ganging up on another (admittedly idiotic) player and punching that player with malice. Having complete disregard for actually winning the game at hand. Just overall, we lost our class. And that was the biggest loss of the day.