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\u201cI love Soler. We were teammates here,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cBut that\u2019s a big man, and so I just felt I’ve gotta get him off his feet because he\u2019s gonna hurt somebody. And so that was my instinct, just to get in there and get Jorge off his feet, yeah, because he was on a warpath.\u201d<\/p>\n
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L\u00f3pez was still holding the baseball when he landed a punch on Soler’s batting helmet.<\/p>\n
The two were teammates in Atlanta during the second half of the 2024 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a shame, the situation and how things unfolded,\u201d L\u00f3pez said through a translator, according to MLB.com. \u201cOn my part, there was never any intent to hit him at any point. So, again, it\u2019s just a shame.\u201d<\/p>\n
Atlanta led 4-2 when the fight occurred and went on to a 7-2 victory.<\/p>\n
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Soler’s two-run shot in the first made him 14 for 23 with five homers and three doubles against L\u00f3pez.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I have good numbers against him,\u201d Soler said. \u201cAfter 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\u2019t miss like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weiss understood why Soler was mad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it didn\u2019t look good because of Soler\u2019s numbers against L\u00f3pey, and he hit a homer, he hit him. It didn\u2019t look good,” Weiss said. “L\u00f3pey\u2019s not throwing at him. I don\u2019t allow our pitchers to throw at people just because they can\u2019t get \u2019em out. Our job is to get \u2019em out. But I understand why Soler got angry. And he\u2019s a really mild-mannered guy. So, I think the switch flipped for him.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere was no intent there. I just think that L\u00f3pey\u2019s just overthrowing, because he\u2019s had a hard time getting him out. But he\u2019s certainly not trying to hit him,\u201d Weiss added.<\/p>\n
L\u00f3pez pitched 4 2\/3 innings, allowing three hits with seven strikeouts and two walks.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, guy\u2019s got good numbers off L\u00f3pez, and hits a homer his first at-bat. Gets drilled up high in the wrist his second at-bat and then third one takes a good swing and then throws the next one head-high. It wasn\u2019t over his head but it was head-high coming in,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t blame Jorge one bit. He went out there and words were exchanged and Jorge went out,\u201d Suzuki added. \u201cYou get thrown at your head, you have a family, your career, you know, it\u2019s dangerous. I know it\u2019s part of the game. I know it happens.”<\/p>\n
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The Angels won 6-2 on Monday in the opener of the three-game series. Tuesday night’s game was more eventful, to say the least.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gets your juices flowing a little bit, on both teams I\u2019m sure,” Weiss said. “So, as long as nobody gets hurt, it\u2019s kind of a good time. But as long as nobody gets hurt. But yeah, I was proud of our guys the way we handled everything tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
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AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Angels’ Jorge Soler (12) and Atlanta Braves’ Reynaldo L\u00f3pez (40) fight during the fifth inning of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,113680,57484,113749,10900,2390,5341,5337,5338,5339,5340,113044,113042,113750],"class_list":{"0":"post-257325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-jonah-heim","12":"tag-jorge-soler","13":"tag-jorge-soler-reynaldo-lopez-braves-angels","14":"tag-kurt-suzuki","15":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","16":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","17":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","18":"tag-product-31999-ap-online-baseball-news","19":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","20":"tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","21":"tag-product-40781-ap-georgia-sports-only","22":"tag-reynaldo-lopez","23":"tag-walt-weiss"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}