Benches clear in World Series Game 7 as tempers flare

TORONTO — The World Series championship is at stake in Game 7, high enough stakes already. Yet that alone wasn’t enough to prevent a benches-clearing incident in the bottom of the fourth inning. 

Dodgers reliever Justin Wrobleski hit Andrés Giménez with a pitch on a 2-2 count, Giménez immediately dropping his bat and complaining to the lefty. 

And an already passively tense Game 7 suddenly turned aggressive. 

The benches cleared, and several shoving matches broke out, as Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy restrained Wrobleski and the Blue Jays hopped over the third base dugout railing to join the fray. 

Louis Varland was warming in the Blue Jays bullpen, readying to relieve Max Scherzer. He dropped everything and led his bullpen mates to the infield. 

Both benches were warned and the next batter, George Springer, drilled a ball off Wrobleski’s foot, to the delight of the crowd. 

While the Dodgers-Blue Jays Game 7 incident grabbed the viewing public’s attention, the tension between the dugouts had been brewing since the bottom of the first inning, when Dodgers starting pitcher and leadoff batter Shohei Ohtani took almost the entire between-innings break resting in the dugout, causing manager John Schneider to complain to home plate umpire Jordan Baker.

Ohtani emerged with about 40 seconds left and the countdown clock stopped. 

After that half inning, Schneider initially conferred at length with Baker. After Ohtani batted in the third, he remained in the dugout from the 3:10 mark at the countdown’s start until 17 seconds remained. 

The crowd booed. Baker said something to Ohtani. The clock stopped. 

As Springer stepped in, it’d been 4 minutes, 20 seconds since a pitch was last thrown. In a mid-inning interview with Fox Sports, Schneider called the delay ‘egregious’ and that the umpires said they’d discuss the delay with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. 

The point became moot when the Blue Jays chased Ohtani, the pitcher, from the game on Bo Bichette’s three-run homer in the third.

Ohtani was pitching on three days’ rest for the first time in his career

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