Angels, Red Sox Talk a Good Game

While all those around him were doing their best to downplay Tuesday night’s brushback brushfire, Boston first baseman Mo Vaughn delivered a verbal fastball at the head of the Angels.

“We hate them,” he said. “We don’t hate them personally or individually, but we hate them.”

Both teams seem certain to make the playoffs. Could a postseason blow-up be in the making? Could a chance to play in the World Series be won or lost because of ejections or injuries resulting from a beanball war?

“It’s a volatile situation any time you have good, competitive teams playing,” Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said, “but things like this usually don’t carry over.”

And, from the calmer head in the visiting manager’s office?

“We’ve had some emotions with this team before and both teams were fired up,” Kevin Kennedy said. “We’re having a good year; they’re having a good year and there’s just a lot of intensity out there.”

Of course, neither Lachemann nor Kennedy will have to duck under a 90-plus m.p.h. fastball any time soon.

“There’s nothing more bush than throwing at a guy’s head,” designated hitter Chili Davis said. “I don’t care who does it. When you make the decision to take a guy’s life in your hands, then what goes around is going to come around.

“I don’t know anything about bad blood. To me it’s a personal thing, not a team thing. If a guy throws at me, then I’ll take care of it.”

The Red Sox-Angel mutual dislike society got going on June 8, when Tony Phillips and Boston catcher Mike Macfarlane rolled around in the dirt after Macfarlane suggested Phillips stop arguing balls and strikes and get back in the batter’s box. It escalated Tuesday night when Roger Clemens threw a pitch behind the head of Garret Anderson in the second inning and Mike Harkey retaliated with a pitch that hit Macfarlane in the back of the head in the fourth.

The Angels are convinced that Clemens, who has been known to try and intimidate rookies, was sending a message to Anderson to test his mettle.

“He did it to me when I was a rookie and he did it to J.T. [Snow],” said Tim Salmon, who also took a Clemens’ fastball on the hip in the bottom of the fourth. “That’s part of his game, there’s no question about it.

“The only difference was our guy ducked and their’s didn’t.”

The Angels were fuming because both sides were issued warnings in the top of the fourth inning, but Clemens was not ejected for hitting Salmon. Plate umpire Tim McClelland said after the game that he didn’t throw out Clemens because he thought the pitch was “a changeup.”

So much for that theory.

Wednesday, Clemens said Macfarlane had called for an outside pitch to Salmon, but he shook him off, aimed for Macfarlane’s left knee and “threw the ball as hard as I could.”

“After you get a warning, it makes things tough,” Clemens said. “ But I learned really early, about my second year, that you can’t aim pitches when you’re trying to pitch inside. If you do, they end up getting hit a long way.

“I don’t care if a guy is a rookie or what, I pitch almost everybody inside. I don’t [try to] pitch up at a guy’s head, it’s too dangerous. I can get my advantage by coming inside at the chest or at the belt. I came back [to Anderson] with a pitch inside and struck him out after I missed over his head and hit his bat. The first time, I just overthrew the two-seam fastball. It’s a pitch I don’t really know where it’s going.

“But the bottom line is I didn’t hit anybody in the head. You can just throw one two feet over a guy’s head to the backstop, then everything’s even and the game goes on. But they came back and hit Mac in the head.”

For his part, Harkey said he “didn’t hit him in the head on purpose.”

The managers would like to take the high road, but it’s likely Vaughn isn’t the only player who’s harboring a measure of ill will. And so the drama figures to continue Sept. 1-3 when the Angels meet the Red Sox in Boston.

Times staff writer Mike DiGiovanna contributed to this story.