It wasn’t just another heated division game! What happened Thursday night between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres felt like the beginning of something bigger and messier. Because it’s not every day you see a shouting, shoving, and bench-clearing fiasco in the baseball-verse!

It all kicked off in the ninth inning of the final game of a tense four-game series in Los Angeles. Dodgers rookie Jack Little, who in his major league debut hit Fernando Tatis Jr. on the wrist with a pitch. (talk about making an explosive start). The moment was already tense, and the emotions were building all series, so that pitch just pushed things over the edge. Padres manager Mike Shildt walked onto the field to check on Tatis. Next thing you know, even Dave Roberts came out, and the dugout got empty as things boiled over. The drama ended ultimately with both managers being ejected. But next, instead of things calming down, it got even worse.

There were more fireworks when Padres reliever Robert Suarez hit Shohei Ohtani with a pitch! This is when alarm bells rang for MLB, and hence, they started handing down suspensions the next day. Suarez got three games, and both Roberts and Shildt got one-game bans and fines for “unsportsmanlike conduct.” But not everyone thinks that it’s the managers or the players who are at fault here. Some even point their fingers at the ones given the punishment, too—aka MLB!

MLB insider Trevor May hinted that the league itself might have started the entire fiasco. How? Because of the insane schedule that he says MLB set. May mentioned at the Baseball Today podcast, “It’s going to happen again…it’s insane whoever did this schedule. I don’t know if they thought about this, but one for seven games in 10 days and six times in 10 days seems like excessive. This is going to boil over.” This claim is not far off, because history backs him up. Tight and repetitive matchups have intensified rivalries before. Take the Yankees and Rays or the Mets and Braves instances for example. Their rivalry increased because of the calendar, too.

Now the Padres had a close save since Tatis’ X-rays came back negative. Though he did say that the results were kind of inconclusive. Still, he was back in the lineup Friday night, and Suarez is active while his appeal is being reviewed. However, make no mistake, this wasn’t just a bad night between two Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers. This is a rivalry that is heating up fast, like wildfire.

LA has already taken five of the first seven games this season, and when they meet again from August 15-24 six times in ten days, the stakes, the frustrations, and the bruises will still be fresh. Plus, given that big names like Ohtani and Tatis are caught in this, it’s started being a little too explosive. For now, Mike Shildt is done staying quiet about the rivalry!

San Diego Padres’ Shildt calls out Los Angeles Dodgers

Padres manager Mike Shildt, standing in front of reporters the next day, didn’t mince words. He really didn’t need to. Fernando Tatis Jr. had been drilled on the wrist again, and this was not the first time. He mentioned, “After a while, enough’s enough.” But really, can you blame his frustration? He really has the numbers backing him up because Tatis has been hit by Dodgers pitchers three times this season. But that’s not all—he has been hit five times in just two years. No other team has hit him more than four times in his entire career. Plus, the team and the fans too are pretty scarred, given that last month, Tatis took a 93-mile-per-hour fastball straight to the forearm and escaped a major injury.

For Schildt, it was not a coincidence anymore. “Intentional, unintentional, the fact of the matter is I took… You mess with people’s careers, you mess with people’s seasons. We’ve got a guy that’s in there getting drilled and got X-rays. That’s not good enough. That’s not cool. He’s our dude, and I got him and I got our whole club.” Now, sure, Tatus’s X-rays came back normal, but he is not out of danger completely. The MRI and CT scans are still left to rule out anything crucial.

Over in the Dodgers’ dugout, Roberts had a different view. “I think anyone would understand there’s no intent there. And even by my reaction, I didn’t feel good about Tatis—great player, good guy—getting hit.” Now, when it came to Schildt’s response, Roberts didn’t hold back his frustration. He told SportsNet LA that what stung him the most was the way Shildt came charging out of the dugout to point fingers. “I took it personally,” Roberts admitted. For him, that the Dodgers were doing it on purpose crossed the line.

Now the rivalry is far from over, and given that they face each other for a long stretch in August, things will only boil over. What do you think? Will the teams calm down when they meet again?