On a 93-degree Wednesday afternoon at Coors Field, tempers boiled over between the visiting Red Sox and the Rockies.
Colorado right-hander Cal Quantrill escaped a jam in the fourth inning by getting catcher Reese McGuire to fly out to center fielder Brenton Doyle for the third out. Quantrill, a demonstrative player, pumped his arms to celebrate and then exchanged heated words with McGuire as McGuire ran up the line.
UPDATE: Rockies blast Red Sox for four homers in record-tying 20-7 win
The two players moved toward each other, and players from both benches and bullpens rushed onto the field. Colorado catcher Jacob Stallings quickly got between Quantrill and McGuire.
According to Quantrill, McGuire took offense to his celebration and yelled at him. Then, Quantrill fired off a personal insult at McGuire, and the two players charged at each other. The Rockies were ahead 8-2 at the time. Quantrill said his emotion was not directed at the Red Sox, or McGuire in particular.
“Listen, I recognize that we were (ahead) by whatever we were up by, but I celebrate when I get important outs, and he took offense to it,” Quantrill said after the Rockies bludgeoned Boston, 20-7. “Some words were exchanged. That’s baseball. We’ll all move on.”
Quantrill said he didn’t think the incident would escalate into a brawl.
“I had a lot of teammates around me, so I got my emotions in check, and you move on,” said Quantrill, who pitched a quality start and earned his seventh win.
“I saw it all unfold and I was pumped,” Stallings said. “I said, ‘Let’s go!’ to Cal. He was looking right at me. It was a huge out.
“I saw Reese, and I know Reese from our Pirates days. And I knew Cal wasn’t yelling at Reese initially. I just wanted to calm things down before anything got too crazy.”
McGuire did not talk to reporters after the game.
Rockies manager Bud Black tried to put the incident into the perspective of a long baseball season.
“We have seen Cal numerous times, with a big out, or the third out of an inning, where, in a critical part of the game, we’ve seen him show emotion,” Black said. “So today was no different. Cal shows that emotion. Competitor. Competitive spirit.
“From there, I don’t know exactly what happened. Then, all of a sudden, we have a dust-up, and then here comes everybody. After it quieted down, we took our warnings from the umpires and continued to play baseball.”
No punches were thrown and no one was ejected.
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Originally Published: July 24, 2024 at 2:59 p.m.
