Darwin was on the mound, and things got tense fast. Young slugger Henry Rodriguez had homered earlier and took his time watching it. Darwin didn’t like it, so he responded with a pitch that hit Rodriguez. Henry saw it coming and charged the mound. A couple of punches were thrown but nothing landed clean. Darwin tried to toss Rodriguez down, and the benches cleared. A big crowd formed, hats and helmets flew, and it looked like things were winding down.
Then it flared up again. This time it was Cangelosi and Juden going at it. Juden was a big guy, Cangelosi was not, but Cangelosi held his own—stayed low, landed a decent shot, and ran off with Juden chasing. In the chaos, the wildest moment came when Astros manager Terry Collins took a full batting helmet to the face. It popped his cap two feet in the air. Collins barely flinched, but he was bleeding from the lip. Despite taking the worst hit of the day, he somehow got tossed from the game. Meanwhile, umpire Joe West, unsurprisingly in the middle of it all, looked completely lost. The fight was a mess, but it delivered serious chaos and a handful of unreal moments.