MVN - Most Valuable Network

Rays Brawl with Themselves This Time

The Rays continue to fight on the field, but this time it wasn’t against the other team.  During the bottom of the fourth inning against the Rangers, Catcher Dioner Navarro and Pitcher Matt Garza had a heated confrontation on the mound. Navarro kept his mask on and got in Garza’s face. Garza yelled out “I GOT YOU” and got right back in Navarro’s face. Pitching Coach, Jim Hickey came out to break up the mound meeting.

After the inning was over Garza and Navarro got into a shoving match in the dugout. Joe Maddon, Jim Hickey, Tom Foley and a few players pushed them down the tunnel and out of the view of the TV camera. Garza’s day was done after just four innings in which he gave up three runs on six hits, one walk and threw 77 pitches.  Garza was visibly frustrated and animated throughout the game on the mound. The scene reminded me of a milder version of what happened between Carlos Zambrano and Michael Barrett last year. Hopefully, the two can just work it out after they cool down and we can all just get along.

Here are some quotes from Joe Maddon, Dioner Navarro and Matt Garza. It seems they are all saying the right thing and everyone is back on the same page:

 Joe Maddon

“It’s just one of those things that happens on occasion and we take care of it,” Maddon said. “Just write what you saw. That’s all I got. Just write what you saw. It’s something that we’re going to take care of, and we’re going to take care of soon.”

Matt Garza

Garza said: “Nothing really, just keep it in house and fix it. That’s about it. … Heat of passion, probably. We’re both competitors, whatever happened will stay here and we’re going to fix it. We definitely can fix it. This is a great bunch of guys and everybody’s on each other’s side, and we’re gonna fix it. It’s a big step and we’re gonna fix it.”Nothing physically, nothing like that, just stuff I have to fix, that’s about it. I’m good.”

Dioner Navarro

“It was just something that happened during the game and it’s being taken care of. It happens in the family. I think everybody is going to be fine from this point on. It was really nothing.”

Now play nice boys.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 at 6:29 pm and is filed under MVN Rays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.