A bench-clearing brawl took place between the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday, but it didn’t end on the diamond as a couple of players aired their differences out in the parking lot after the contest.When all was said and done, Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke had suffered a broken left collarbone and is expected to be out of action for up to eight weeks.
Reports say that Los Angeles outfielder Matt Kemp met up with San Diego outfielder Carlos Quentin in the parking lot as they were heading out of Petco Park.
San Diego pitcher Clayton Richard tried to get in between them to break it up while police and security guards rushed to the scene to restore order. Kemp went after Quentin to ask why he had charged the mound and Greinke in the sixth inning after being hit by a pitch.
Quentin was the lead-off batter in the sixth inning and Greinke was pitching to him with a full count. The next pitch then struck Quentin in the left shoulder. The batter then charged the mound with Greinke attempting to tackle him and that’s when the pitcher suffered his injury.
Greinke said he definitely didn’t hit Quentin on purpose as he had a full count. Quentin replied that he charged the mound after he heard Greinke say something.
Greinke had to return to Los Angeles to have more tests done on his shoulder while his teammates headed for Arizona for a weekend series. Los Angeles manager Don Mattingly said Quentin holds the Padres' record for getting hit by pitches as he’s been nailed 116 times s far during his MLB career.
He added that he has led the league in getting hit for the last two seasons. Mattingly said Quentin should be forced to sit out until Greinke’s shoulder has healed and he can pitch again. The manager said if Quentin had simply gone to first base after being hit, then nothing would have happened.
However, it turns out that there has been some bad blood between Quentin and Greinke in the past. Greinke hit Quentin in the back with a pitch back in 2009 while they were each playing for AL teams.
Quentin said he reacted to rushing the mound because Greinke hit him before, but the final straw was when he heard the pitcher say something. He said he’s been hit by pitches dozens of times before, but this was the first time he reacted this way.
In fact, he was hit by a pitch just two days earlier in a game against the Dodgers and had to sit out the next day. After the initial brawl had ended, it almost started up again when Jerry Hairston Jr. of the Dodgers left the dugout and ran across the field, but he was then held back.
Kemp was restrained as well as the center fielder began to yell at several of the Padres players. Greinke, Kemp, Quentin, and Hairston were all thrown out of the game by the umpire. The Dodgers won the game, 3-2, and they meet up with San Diego again on April 15 at Dodger Stadium.
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