The frustrations of a potential lost season left two Rays players having to be separated in their dugout Wednesday night.
Yandy Diaz yelled and pointed while walking toward Jose Caballero before teammates and coaches intervened during the eighth inning of the Rays’ 4-2 road win over the A’s.
Both Caballero and Rays manager Kevin Cash chalked it up to players being a little on edge with the Rays sitting 6 ½ games out of a playoff spot with a 64-62 record.
“Emotions got the best of us,” Caballero said. “We’re trying to be the best player we can be. We’re competitors. Emotions got us and we’re just trying to be the best we can be and things happen and just trying to make plays and try to win games. We’re in a bad stretch, we’re not doing the best and we wish we would be in a playoff position and maybe that could be one of the things that got us. Just trying to be competitors out there and emotions got us. Play happened and we got to the dugout and things happened.”
The play that set off this exchange happened moments before when Diaz could not field a low throw from Caballero, which seemingly brought the tying run to the plate in a 4-2 game.
However, Miguel Anduar veered toward second while the ball got away from Diaz and the Rays tagged him for the second out.
After the inning ended, the Rays’ broadcast captured Diaz walking and pointing toward an unknown person on the field.
One of the broadcasters then speculated that Caballero may have been involved in the dispute before he entered the picture while being shielded by several teammates.
The two stood at opposite ends of the dugouts, with several Rays staffers standing in front of Diaz while he continued to voice his frustrations.
“It happens. We’re in a season right now where we’re trying to fight and claw every way to get back into this thing,” Cash said. “We got a lot of work to do, so we got two guys that are really competing — we got a bunch of guys that are really competing and want things to go perfectly and sometimes they don’t. Seemed like they were was a little friction, but I’m very confident we’ll move on from it and be ready to go.”
The Rays’ win marked the fifth in the last six games and they will look to take three of four from the A’s in Thursday’s series finale.
Tampa Bay will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2018 if they cannot make up the sizable deficit with just 36 games remaining in their season
