The three-game series between the Seattle Mariners and the Houston Astros had a fiery start, with both teams emptying their bench in a late-game fracas Monday night. What sparked the scrum was a pitch from Astros reliever Héctor Neris at the top of the ninth that hit Mariners first baseman Ty France in the back. That was clearly unintentional, though, for Houston manager Dusty Baker, who explained after the contest why it was absurd to say that the Astros did that on purpose.

Via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com:

“I don’t want to talk about it too much more because I’m already kind of pissed off,” Baker said.

“In a one-run game, you're not going to put anybody on by throwing at them,” Baker said. “We don’t do that anyway.”

“It appears there’s some bad blood brewing, even from last year,” Baker said.

“It sort of snowballed into bad events for us,” Baker said.

With the Mariners up by a run, 5-4, France got a free pass to the first base as a result of that errant pitch from Neri, who was also ejected from the game along with Baker. Then rookie outfielder Julio Rodriguez hit a two-run homer to give Seattle the lead for good.

The 35-20 Astros, meanwhile, have now lost two of their last three games, though, there's hardly anything for them to be overly concerned about, as they still lead the American League West division by 8.5 games.