Benches cleared between the Rays and Nationals over something from three weeks ago



The Tampa Bay Rays and the Washington Nationals don’t meet a lot during the MLB regular season, but there’s definitely some bad blood between the two sides this season.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Rays capped off the two-game series with a 1-0 victory to sweep the series and earn their fifth straight victory and things got chippy after the final out was recorded.



Things got chippy at the The Trop following the #Rays’ 5th straight win. pic.twitter.com/AaOUP68UhR — MLB (@MLB) June 26, 2018

Sergio Romo struck out Nationals centre field Michael A. Taylor to end the game and celebrated by shouting in Taylor’s direction, as a way of paying him back for stealing a base a few weeks ago when the Nats had a massive lead. As a result of this, both benches made their way onto the field in a hurry.



Following the game, Romo was asked about the whole thing and explained why he did what he did. Here’s what he had to say, via the Tampa Bay Times.



“I think I said enough out there,” Romo said. “Self-explanatory, I think. No disrespect to that team, no disrespect to their coaching staff, no disrespect to anybody on that team other than the person I felt disrespected me and my team.



“Don’t know him personally, nothing against him off the field. Just let you know that this game is very unforgiving. The way I was taught to play this game it governs itself, and just had to let him know I didn’t like that.”

As for Taylor, here’s what he had to say about the entire situation.



Michael A.: "They're upset I stole a base at home in the sixth... you saw how many runs they scored with nine outs yesterday. So the game's not over. Obviously, they think differently, but I'm not worried about that. We lost the game. That's the only thing that upsets me." — Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) June 26, 2018 Michael A. also said "I'm not big on drama," which is the understatement of the week. — Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) June 26, 2018

Nationals manager Dave Martinez also weighed in after the game and took full responsibility for Taylor running on Romo and the Rays a few weeks ago.



Davey: "Sergio was a little upset that we ran on him...If he gets mad, he should get mad at me, but don't show up one of our players. I know Kevin Cash, he'll take care of that. Don't do that. He's been in this league long enough to know you don't do that kind of stuff." — Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) June 26, 2018

The two teams split the four-game season series this year and it’s too bad we won’t get to see them go head-to-head one more time.

(H/T Twitter/MLB)