The Los Angeles Angels loss to the Atlanta Braves featured an undercard bout between Jorge Soler and Reynaldo Lopez.
The Los Angeles Angels have been hitting home runs and getting buzzed high and tight a lot, and these two things combined to produce a very bad result in the Angels’ 7-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves, as Angels DH Jorge Soler charged the mound in the fifth inning to produce a benches-clearing fight that led to the ejection of both Soler and pitcher Reynaldo Lopez.
Soler hammered a lined shot into the first row in left in the first inning to give the Angels a 2-0 lead, and Lopez responded by hitting Soler with a pitch in his next at-bat. The third time the two faced off was in the fifth inning, and a high fastball that was inside and over Soler’s head led to a staring match during the throw to second as Nolan Schanuel advanced after the wild pitch went to the backstop and quickly rebounded.
The stare-down continued, and when Soler took a couple of tentative steps toward the mound, Lopez extended his arms in a “come get me” gesture. A fight quickly ensued, with Lopez in full retreat toward the Braves dugout as the two players continued to throw punches.
“I asked him if everything was OK and the answer he gave me, I didn’t like it,” Soler said after the game through interpreter Jobel Jiménez in an ESPN/AP report. “That’s why I went out there.”
The fight was broken up quickly with no damage done, although Lopez did appear to land a glancing blow to Soler’s helmet as he was backing up. Braves manager Walt Weiss participated in the tackle scrum that brought Soler to the ground, and both managers proceeded to defend their respective guys as expected.
Angels manager Kurt Suzuki didn’t mince words when he backed up Soler, saying in his initial comments that he “didn’t blame him one bit.”
"He went out there and words were exchanged and Jorge went out," Suzuki said. "You get thrown at your head, you have a family, your career, you know, it's dangerous. I know it's part of the game. I know it happens."
The history between the two players probably had something to do with this. Soler is 14-for-23 with five homers and three doubles against Lopez, and said he thought Lopez's pitch was "intentional."
"Obviously, I have good numbers against him," Soler said. "After the home run and getting hit by a pitch after that, and then he missed way too high and close to my head. At this level, you can't miss like that."
Weiss, meanwhile, was more circumspect given that he had to defend the perceived villain in the battle.
"I love Soler. We were teammates here," Weiss said, referring to Soler's time with the Braves in 2021 and 2024. "But that's a big man. I just felt I gotta get him off his feet because he's gonna hurt somebody. And so that was my instinct, just to get in there and get Jorge off his feet, because he was on a warpath."
Lopez was holding the baseball when he landed his punch, and for a moment it appeared he was going to throw at Soler while off the mound before the fists started flying.
"It's just a shame, the situation and how things unfolded," Lopez said through an interpreter, according to a piece written by Rhett Bollinger and Courtney Hollman of MLB.com. "On my part, there was never any intent to hit him at any point. So again, it's just a shame."
Soler also said he had no ill will against Weiss for participating in the group tackle.
“We have a good relationship,” Soler said. “I don’t think he tried to do anything against me. We’re friends. I think he was just trying to protect me.”
The rest of the game almost felt anticlimactic after that. The Braves were leading 4-2 when the fight occurred, and they went on to win, 7-2. The two teams meet again today in the rubber game of the three-game series, with Reid Detmers going for the Angels while Grant Holmes will start for Atlanta.