Twins third baseman Miguel Sano and Tigers pitcher Matthew Boyd were ejected from Saturday's game after the Minnesota slugger angrily objected to an inside pitch from the Detroit left-hander, prompting a benches-clearing exchange between the division rivals.
The inside pitch to Sano could have been retaliation for an ugly scene in the third inning, when Detroit's JaCoby Jones was hit in the face by a 90 mph fastball from Minnesota right-hander Justin Haley.
Jones began bleeding from his mouth and immediately ran toward Detroit's dugout before leaving the game with medical trainers. He was taken to a hospital. Jones will be placed on the 10-day disabled list.
After the Tigers' 5-4 victory, Detroit skipper Brad Ausmus said Jones had a "nasty split lip" and was undergoing a CT scan at the hospital.
"They think his teeth are all intact," Ausmus said.
Tigers catcher James McCann offered his impressions of Jones' injury.
"It's no fun to get hit. It's a whole other story, you get hit in the face," McCann said. "No protection. That's not a lot of fun, and you don't like to see that happen to your teammates."
The benches-clearing incident took place with one out in the fifth inning, when Boyd threw a pitch behind Sano, who approached the mound and started yelling.
McCann attempted to intervene, but Sano appeared to shove the catcher, and both dugouts and bullpens emptied. It did not appear that any punches were thrown, but Sano and Boyd were ejected.
"I don't want to talk about what he said, but he touched me with his glove and I reacted,'' Sano said . "It was a glove to the face. They were supposed to eject McCann too, but I saw they didn't eject him.''
McCann said he took issue with Sano gesturing toward the mound and merely wanted to protect his pitcher.
"I didn't know what he was going to do,'' McCann said. "I saw him wag his finger at my pitcher and, as far as I'm concerned, you're not going to do that while I'm catching. So I just wanted to step in between and prevent anything from happening.''
The Twins didn't think Haley's pitch to Jones called for retaliation.
"Our pitcher, he didn't intentionally hit him in the face,'' Sano said. "Nobody wants to hit anybody in the face. If that team is saying we're trying to hit somebody, it would be in the leg or something, but never in the face.''
Joe Mauer, who was not in the starting lineup on Saturday, replaced Sano, while Boyd was relieved by Blaine Hardy.
"Boyd was all over the place, all day,'' Ausmus said. "He didn't exactly have the best command. But I guess there doesn't have to be a warning, so the umpires made that decision.''
The Associated Press contributed to this report.