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.

Let’s see that this doesn’t turn into a flame war.

bad move on the Rays part

They hit Coco, but got their starting pitcher ejected, that was really, really dumb on Tampa Bay’s part, now they have to taxed their bullpen. If they are going to give a green light to hit Crisp, do it in the later innings. it is sort of like giving up the queen to get a rook in a chess game.

Let me just get this out of the way by saying, Yes, we could of handled it better than we did. However, if you think this one series was the definitive series of the season you are mistaken. Boston is what, 23 and 5 at home now? Nobody can beat them at fenway. The part that gomes and CC played was wrong. The part Navi played, wasn’t. In fact, I have more respect for Navarro because of it. This series sucked. It was the biggest series this season SO FAR but certainly not enough to say it is the end of our success.

Another note, look at the likely suspension of CC as a blessing. He’ll get to rest his legs and Ruggiano will get some playing to show what he can do. Hopefully he’ll be that missing piece in Rf?

As much as it got out of hand, I bet the Sox and Yanks will think twice about sliding hard in 2nd base to retaliate (ala Crisp and Duncan) from now on.

Poor Aki, this is twice now he’s has been the one who has received the retaliation…he deserved to get in a shot or two.

Crisp is such a punk, if his hairline recedes anymore his weak dreads will simply fall off.

“We’ve been getting stomped around the last 10 years and that’s not going to happen any more”

It’s a nice sentiment, but if you want to do something about that 10 years of getting stomped, you can start by beating the team ahead of you in the division (a good start would be to not get your #2 pitcher ejected after one inning), not try to win a silly brawl war.

I liked what Shields did. Even the Rem-dawg said it was the right move. I might have waited a litlle while, but the team was flat so maybe he wanted to inject some life into them. I was shocked that CoCo didn’t take his poison like a man, and trot down to first and try to steal second. IT SHOULD HAVE ENDED THERE. But, CoCo tried to be a bad-ass (I think his team was a bit unhappy with that) and charged the mound.

I disagree with what Gomes and CC did, but it is somewhat understandable. When somebody comes after your pitcher you teach them a lesson. The suspensions won’t hurt that bad because we can stagger them, and sit guys that wouldn’t play anyway.

Will this boost morale? Probably not. Will it make us a better team? Probably not? Would we have won the game had the brawl not happened? Probably not. I think one thing this did was assert that we are not gonna lay down. We’re gonna fight in the standings and on the field. You can’t walk all over us.

2 other things: What’s the deal w/ Ellsbury? How badly did he hurt his wrist? Do ya’ll think the Manny-Youklis fight will have any lasting effect on the clubhouse? The Idiots are gone from that clubhouse now. I hate Youks so much. Manny gets 5 Ribeyes in his first two ABs so Youks gets in his face. He’s such a douche.

to defend Aki, and Crisp is a punk who admitted that he was headhunting for Bartlett. Something needed to be done and the only regret is that Shields was the one who will be suspended (though i doubt his suspension will be over 5 games so he wont miss a start). Sometimes things like this helps a team’s morale and give them more of a sense of team unity which could be used as a catalyst to get us back into 1st. I’m sorry that you thought this was disgusting but this is part of baseball, maybe you should switch it up to badminton or curling if you don’t like it.

The Rays and Red Sox brawled, in Day 2 of incidents between the teams, and Rays manager Joe Maddon said he was very happy with the way his team responded.

Some observations:

1. It was a little surprising to see Coco Crisp charge the mound, given that he had about 20 hours to prepare for the possibility. He had to know James Shields was probably going to plunk him. So long as Shields did not throw up by his head and instead hit him at the waist or lower, you figured he might jaw a little at the pitcher, jog to first base and then let his pitchers respond on his behalf later in the game. Instead, he's probably going to get suspended for five games, at least. The fight may win Crisp some friends, writes Rob Bradford.

2. Bob Watson, Major League Baseball's discipline chief, should throw the book at Jonny Gomes. The Rays' DH sprinted from the dugout intending only to harm, pigpiling onto Crisp from behind and throwing punches. In these situations, the hitter who is plunked is vastly outnumbered by opposing players on the field, which is probably part of the reason why MLB does not have a rule against players coming off the bench. But this should be exhibit A for a crackdown on third parties jumping into a brawl in the way Gomes did. MLB should give Gomes anything from six to eight games in a suspension, and make it clear that going forward, any third party jumping into a fight as aggressively as Gomes did will get 10 games. As salaries spiral upward, teams are being more and more protective of their talent, handling injuries cautiously, spending millions on medical treatment -- and it seems silly that some player might suffer a injury in a brawl, like Bill Lee in the Red Sox-Yankees fight of 1976 or Mike Mussina in a Seattle-Baltimore fight in 1993. Coming down hard on the actions of third parties in these fights is a good step toward cleaning up this stuff.

Shields all but acknowledged that he threw at Crisp intentionally, and you wonder if his honesty will cost him an extra game or two in his suspension. The Rays need to hold off on retaliation, writes Gary Shelton.

I really hope he is sidelined for a couple of weeks.

PS This isn’t cheering an injury, it is merely hoping they give a young player the proper rest he deserves.

If he hits the DL they will be banged up pretty bad.

is classless.

this is not in any way a low point, or a disgrace. this is a high point, and should be looked at as another step to building up this teams camaraderie and self-image. I know some of the mods on this site are against even bean-ball retaliation, so i don’t expect you all to be for a full out brawl, but this was indeed necessary. if what this team needs to to feel disrespected, to have that chip on their shoulder, then they need to be able to stand up for each other whenever the players see it as necessary, to build that brotherhood, that trust, that bond. we all know that the game is a very high percentage mental, retaliating to a dirty play is part of that mentality, and absolutely the correct thing to do.

on the mob mentality. Coco ran out to hurt Shields.

Winning would have been great, but you can’t gaurantee a win.

Gomes had to have been at the top step. He get’s there the same time as Bartlett and Aki.

and Aybar threw no punches. He was separating guys.

the brawl: http://www.gossiponsports.com/video-coco-crisp-and-the-sox-rays-brawl/

and the slide: http://www.gossiponsports.com/video-coco-crisp-slides-into-second-grabs-a-handful-of-jewels/