The Cardinals and Giants reminded fans of the rivalry of old with Jack Flaherty and Lamonte Wade Jr. getting in a heated exchange that cleared the benches.
Though they play quite a ways apart from one another, there is a heated history between the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants. The two clubs met in the NLCS in 2002, 2012 and 2014, resulting in some classic clashes for a spot in the World Series.
The two franchises might not be World Series contenders again in the 2023 season but we saw a little bit of that old fire get reignited on Tuesday night in Game 2 of their current series, courtesy of Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty and Giants first baseman Lamonte Wade Jr.
In the top of the fourth inning, Wade ripped a double to right field off of Flaherty. After doing so, though, the St. Louis righty retired the rest of the side and got out of the inning. As he exited the field, though, he and Wade began jawing at one another, stopping in their tracks.
Their teammates and coaches, along with the umpires, cleared the benches to separate the two as tensions were raised quite a bit in the kerfuffle.
Cardinals, Giants benches clear as Jack Flaherty, Lamonte Wade Jr. go at it
On the Giants broadcast, they speculated that Flaherty might’ve been upset at Wade for relaying signals to the hitters from second base. It also appeared that the Cardinals pitcher was saying something to the effect of that he’d hit Wade too. Flaherty previously plunked Mitch Haniger in the third inning, which forced the outfielder to leave the game.
We’ll probably get more information on what happened in the verbal scuffle between the two on Tuesday night. But for now, we can enjoy the mild fireworks between the two former playoff foes.
And as for the action, the Giants may have gotten the last laugh. San Francisco was up 3-2 at the time that the benches cleared, but Flaherty struggled as he came back out for the fifth inning as the Cardinals fell into a 6-2 hole (and counting).