Opening Day started off with a bang.
Brewers first baseman Rhys Hoskins slid hard into Mets middle infielder Jeff McNeil during Milwaukee’s 3-1 victory, which led to the two having a confrontation on the field.
McNeil, at one point, stood over Hoskins and barked at him for the slide, and the two benches cleared, though it did little to spark the Mets in an uninspiring one-hit effort to begin their season.
A slide violation wasn’t called, even after review and McNeil’s visible disgust, and Hoskins took the time to rip McNeil for his reaction to the incident.
“I’m just trying to play baseball, right?” Hoskins told reporters after the game. “We got a chance in the eighth with a runner on to tack on another run and the last thing I want to do is give them a clear lane to make a double play. McNeil took excuse to my slide, but I didn’t really think much of it, to be honest. I ended up hitting him, but that’s what happens with a slow developing play and I was trying to make sure he doesn’t turn a double play.”
Hoskins added: “I kind of laid there afterward… I was just letting whatever McNeil needed to get out, let him get it out and I just saw it and ran off the field after that and then got to see everybody on the team out there, so I don’t really have much else to be completely honest with you.”
Hoskins said he couldn’t repeat what McNeil told him but did acknowledge that there were a “few choice words.”
He added of McNeil: “I’ve played in this ballpark a bunch and he just seems to be complaining when things aren’t going well and I think that’s one of those moments. Maybe lost in the heat of the game a little bit, but again I think it’s just playing the game hard and playing the game the right way.”
McNeil said the play was “just a late slide.”
On Hoskins, a former Philadelphia Phillies first slugger, McNeil added, “We’ve had a little bit of a past, so I knew there was a chance that he’d be coming in like that. Didn’t like his slide.”
