Yankees-Rays rivalry: How did we even end up here?

If I had told you that the Yankees were in the midst of a heated rivalry that's involved benches clearing, chirping from both sides, and pitchers throwing at batters out of retaliation, you'd probably think I was with the Boston Red Sox.

But I'm actually talking about the Tampa Bay Rays.

Yes, the Yankees and Rays haven't gone at each other in a Tyler Austin-Joe Kelly or Alex Rodriguez-Jason Varitek style. But what was once just divisional foes playing hard-fought baseball has quickly turned into a battle of unwritten rules being fulfilled in the manner of plunking one another.

After a heated regular-season series, the teams are back in action against each other with the stakes at an all-time high. The fifth-seeded Yankees head to the next-round bubble at Petco Park in San Diego, Monday for Game 1 of a best-of-five ALDS against the top-seeded Rays.

With the Rays' two-game sweep of the eighth-seeded Toronto Blue Jays -- capped by an 8-2 win Wednesday in the AL Wild Card series -- the rivalry comes back into focus. The Yankees, meanwhile, emerged from their best-of-three set with a 10-9 triumph against the Cleveland Indians for a two-game sweep.

The real question, as it relates to bad blood between the Rays and Yankees, is how did this even come to be in the first place? A couple factors have escalated this rivalry for the past few seasons, so let’s break down why the Yankees and Rays have this newfound friction with one another:

Andrew Kittredge, Austin Romine, and CC Sabathia’s Retaliation of 2018

This specific moment in Yankees-Rays history is the defining moment of how we got to where we are today. Taking the mound on Sept. 27, 2018 in the final game of a four-game series against the Rays in Tampa, CC Sabathia had witnessed a back-and-forth of pitchers hitting batters on either team.

It started with the Rays in the first game. The Yankees would retaliate in the second game, but it just continued up until Sabathia got the ball. So he hit Jake Bauers in the hand, making him the third hit batter of the series for Tampa. The unwritten rules were already broken with pitchers going back and forth on this, but Sabathia plunking Bauers should’ve been the end of it, even if it wasn't the "correct" place to hit him. 

That is until Andrew Kittredge took things a big step further when he threw near Austin Romine’s head, and Sabathia jumped out of the dugout to yell at him while being held back. Because he couldn’t right the wrong right then and there, Sabathia decided to throw at Jesus Sucre in the bottom of the sixth inning, knowing he would be ejected after umpires issued warnings to both benches.

The best part about that ejection? Sabathia had an innings incentive that he would’ve reached, as he hadn’t allowed a run and just one hit in the contest thus far. By getting ejected, he didn’t reach the incentive and gave up $500,000.

Instead, he hit Sucre and screams toward the Rays bench something along the lines of, “That’s for you, b---h!” The animosity in that moment sparked what has come to be over the past two seasons.

The Chirping

Phil Nevin, the Yankees’ third base coach, can have his way with words that get under opponent’s skin. It’s a character trait that the Rays just don’t like.

According to Tampa Bay Times’ John Romano, Nevin was heard saying, “Get him out of there,” whenever a Rays pitcher was being visited by coaches at the mound. Taunts of other kinds would also occur, and the Rays would bark back. Mike Zunino was supposedly one who did so, mocking Nevin’s comment when James Paxton allowed multiple homers during the Yankees' 4-3 loss to the Rays at Tropicana Field on Aug. 9. The first series between the two saw a momentum swing in the AL East as the Rays (8-8) crept back to .500 and the Yankees (10-6) dropped 3 of 4.

The chirping added fuel to the fire. 

The Rays started throwing up and in on Yankees hitters during that same series, and eventually Boone and hitting coach Marcus Thames were ejected (Kittredge was involved in some of those pitches, by the way), while Aaron Judge didn’t hold back his frustrations about it in a post-game interview.

Rays Are Different

Before this season began, the Yankees had been -- more often than not -- the winner in their meetings. From 2015-19, the Yankees notched a 59-38 record against their division foe. But the Rays organization is no longer one that hovers around the middle or bottom of the AL East anymore.

They’re a real threat after developing under Kevin Cash’s leadership in the clubhouse since 2014, when he took over for former manager Joe Maddon. The Yankees certainly realize that -- they went 2-8 against them this season and the Rays won the division by seven games. Gerrit Cole, the Yankees’ ace, hasn’t been able to figure out the Rays at all this season either, so that doesn’t help matters.

“I think this year we have their number and we’ve played well against them and we’ve beaten them time and time again. Maybe that frustrates them,” Rays OF Kevin Kiermaier told MLB.com. “I don’t know. It’s easy to get mad over certain things.”

The Aftermath

It almost became something much worse Sept. 1 when Aroldis Chapman fired a 101-mph heater over the head of Mark Brosseau, which immediately made Rays manager Cash -- justifiably -- furious. He ran out of the dugout, was ejected and his players backed him up after the game was completed by shouting at the Yankees with benches cleared.

In turn, Chapman was suspended three games (he is in the process of appealing), while Cash and Yanks manager Aaron Boone were both suspended one game.

But before that incident even took place in the Yankees' 5-3 win over the Rays, Masahiro Tanaka hit Joey Wendle in the backside with a pitch -- as expected retaliation for throwing up and in against DJ LeMahieu, who had recently returned off the IL with a sprained left thumb, the night before. It was something the Rays accepted, with Cash saying as much during his post-game comments.

Following the ejection, Cash didn’t hold back how he felt about Chapman’s pitch. And that included a threat.

“The chirping from the dugout,” Cash said. “Somebody needs to tell me, go pull up the numbers, who has hit who more, but I can assure you that other than three years ago, there hasn’t been one pitch thrown with intent from any of our guys. Period. Somebody has to be held accountable. And the last thing I’ll say on it, is that I have a whole damn stable full of guys that throw 98 mph. Period.”

Well, first of all, Cash admitted that Kittredge did throw at Romine intentionally. Kittredge was suspended three games for the pitch, but Cash saying it was done on purpose isn’t a good look. 

DJ LeMahieu, who heard Cash’s comments loud and clear, was prepared for whatever.

“Sounds like they’re gonna try to throw at us tomorrow,” he said at the time. “We’ll be ready.”

Sept. 2 was the final game the Rays and Yankees played against each other... until the postseason.