By Ben Leonard
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rantsports.com photo: Texas Rangers Jeff Banister said the now famous punch by the Rangers Rougned Odor was justified on the Toronto Blue Jays Jose Bautista as stated before the Rangers-A’s game on Monday
OAKLAND– The unwritten rules of baseball are tricky. Hit a home run and celebrate, and you get drilled. Take a hard slide to try to exact your pound of flesh in return, and you’ll get drilled again with a sucker punch. 

Jose Bautista learned it the hard way on Sunday after hitting a go-ahead home run in the seventh inning in an elimination game against the Texas Rangers last postseason, arguably the most enthralling in Blue Jays history. His crime? Dropping his bat emphatically and electrifying the Rogers Centre. 

On Sunday, Bautista came up to the dish in likely his final plate appearance against Texas in 2016, and finally got hit with the revenge the Rangers had been seeking, a Matt Bush fastball to the ribs. When Bautista slid hard into second base, Rangers’ second baseman Rougned Odor took exception, dealing Bautista a punch right to the face. The benches cleared, and the rest is history. 

The fiery Odor has a reputation for playing physically. According to Yahoo’s Jeff Passan, when Odor came up to the majors, a scout had this to say about him: “The thing I love about him the most is you do not want to [expletive] with him.” Wild guess, but I think Bautista would agree with that.

Don’t count Rangers’ manager Jeff Banister as one of those coming down hard on Odor. The second-year manager thinks the media has been unfair in criticizing the second baseman.

“I’m not going to criticize a player for playing hard in those situations, on our side or on their side,” Banister said Monday before a game against the Oakland Athletics. “Things happen during those situations that are ugly, that look bad — it’s not good for anybody. But I think you’re getting a little one-sided on the view. That was not a pretty situation out on second base that got escalated because there were two guys that had a lot of passion for the game and played hard. Do you want that to happen? Absolutely not — I don’t want that.”

Banister also doesn’t think Odor should have to temper his emotions and passion in order to please others. “Does he need to walk a fine line, and what do we do, take his personality and passion away from him and now he’s not the same player?” Banister said. “I think he needs to continue to play. It’s how he plays the game  — he plays it hard, he runs hard, he swings the bat, he does things to try and help his team win ball games….I haven’t seen anything that is dirty. If playing hard is offensive, then it’s just offensive.”

Many believe that Bush intentionally hit Bautista to spark the brawl, but Banister once again dispelled the notions that his players were culpable. With a one-run lead and Bautista having logged just two hits that series, Banister thought Bush was just trying to help his team win the game.

“We’re in the business of winning baseball games,” Banister maintained. “We had a one-run lead. We’ve blown quite a few leads late from a shaky bullpen — why would we intentionally put ourselves in that situation? That’s the part of this I don’t understand. We would have been just as happy to move on and win a baseball game — which we did.”

Baseball scripture suggests that players new to the team, like Bush, would do anything to gain the approval of their teammates — especially plunk Bautista. Again, Banister defended his pitcher.

“When you’re on a team you’re part of the team, whether you’re a new guy or a veteran,” Banister said. “Earning your stripes is helping a team win games.”