Watch: Twins-Rangers benches clear after Sonny Gray hits Mitch Garver (Video)

A different kind of fireworks showed up at Target Field, creating back-to-back nights of absolute chaos between the Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers.

On Thursday the two teams engaged in a mini Home Run Derby with eight combined homers getting launched. Something else was getting launched a night later, as benches cleared in the fourth inning after the Rangers took exception to Sonny Gray plunking former Twin Mich Garver.

While Garver was familiar to most of the Twins in the other dugout, there was nothing friendly about their meeting on the field.

Gray hit Garver with a pitch in the fourth inning in what appeared to be retaliation for Ryan Jeffers getting plunked an inning earlier. That seemed to be retaliation for Jeffers’ bat flip after hitting what ended up being the game-winning home run on Thursday night.

Garver wasn’t pleased about the whole incident and approached the mound, which caused both benched and both bullpens to empty as players ran onto the field.

Twins-Rangers benches clear after Sonny Gray hits Mitch Garver (Video)

Order was quickly restored and nothing ended up coming from the whole incident, but everyone was put on notice. It was a particularly frustrating stretch for the Twins, who took exception to the way home late umpire Carlos Torres was calling the game.

The end previous inning, in which Jeffers was hit by Rangers starter Dane Dunning, saw both Joey Gallo and manager Rocco Baldelli tossed for arguing balls and strikes. We went straight from that into the benches clearing incident prompted by Gray’s relation.

It’s worth noting that the Twins and Rangers will see each other five more times in the next ten days which means we might not have seen the last of this whole matter.

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