Back to the Oakland Athletics Newsfeed

A’s and Angels briefly clear benches Friday, but cooler heads prevail

The Oakland A’s and Los Angeles Angels nearly had a benches-clearing brawl Friday night, but then a really cool thing happened. Instead they just didn’t, and worked out their issues like adults.

The kerfuffle began in the 3rd inning, when Shohei Ohtani threw a 93 mph fastball high-and-tight that forced Mark Canha to duck his head out of the way. It was clearly an accident — Ohtani is an excellent pitcher but he’s wild at times, and he was trying to go inside to a tough hitter in a scoreless game.

But in the moment, when you get buzzed by a heater near your face, you react.