Gleyber Torres' explanation for benches clearing in Tigers-Mariners deflects blame to Cal Raleigh

While Gleyber Torres may have been caught in a viral postgame lip-read (non-Jomboy division, so we trust it less), he believes Cal Raleigh was the true instigator of the Tigers-Mariners incident that left the benches clear in the eighth inning on Wednesday.

Raleigh was struck by an errant Enmanuel De Jesus pitch in the seventh frame with the Tigers trailing 3-0 at the time. By any metric, that'd be an odd time to get some retribution, especially with every run (and every game) crucial to Detroit's efforts to climb back into the Wild Card race and AL Central chase. It's been a tight series, and the Tigers have had the upper hand throughout the vast majority.

De Jesus had no point to prove, and though Raleigh - in the midst of the worst year-over-year downturn baseball fans have ever seen - wasn't thrilled to be drilled, odds are this was accidental.

We think. Don't quote us on that. But quote Torres!

Gleyber Torres tried to defuse tension between Tigers, Mariners before benches cleared

Of course, the very next inning is when the real fun started - both because the Tigers made a game of it and because the M's made Torres into target practice.

Lefty reliever Gabe Speier - with only 11 walks in 30 innings this year - came up and in on Torres twice. The resulting mess gave us a pair of ejections and some potential suspensions to worry about as the race draws tighter and every iota of competitive fre matters just a little bit more.

If you believe Torres, he wasn't the instigator. He purportedly told Raleigh that the hit-by-pitch was an accident, and claims to have checked in on him prior to the at-bat to confirm he was feeling alright.

Sound strategy, but it didn't seem to stop any plans that Speier and Raleigh had from coming to fruition.

Both of these teams, after playing a marathon postseason series-ender last year, were expected to win their respective divisions in 2026. Neither team is over .500. That's lent an air of "last chance saloon" to this series, and probably spiked Raleigh and Speier's cortisol a bit.

We don't mean to take sides here, but Torres claims innocence.

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