BFD is my take. Not a great slide from Austin, but even Alex Cora wouldn’t call it “dirty” afterwards. I’ve watched it a few times and it doesn’t look at all intentional. (Whether it should have ultimately been ruled a double play under the new rule is another matter.) Brock Holt said “I said something I probably shouldn’t have said,” and I don’t know what Austin said, but it probably wasn’t “Hey man, I’m sorry about my inept slide,” which is what he should have said. But for Joe Kelly to try to hit him twice is pretty punk by old-school standards in and of itself. (Even the moderator of Over The Monster can’t stand Kelly.) If Kelly’s going to throw at Austin twice, expect him to come after you. It’s freakin’ baseball, all the way around. The best part of it was seeing Judge and Stanton calmly martial a huge scrum of players all the way back to the Boston dugout.
As for the overall game itself, very good to see Stanton and Sanchez’s bats finally come to life. (Stanton’s 1st inning triple would have been a HR in any other park... and what was up wjth J.D. Martinez’ “where is it?” take on Sanchez’s followup home run?) And every 9th inning with Aroldis Chapman is an adventure... geezus.