D-backs, Dodgers renew acquaintances: Does bad blood follow?

Four weeks have passed, and as manager Kirk Gibson reminded the media, there was a game the day after the Diamondbacks and Dodgers mixed it up and nothing happened.

Does that hold true Monday when the Dodgers invade Chase Field for a three-game series?

“I mean whatever happened last time, it happened. That’s it. Game over,” Miguel Montero said. “We’ve just got to move on. They’ve been playing pretty good as of late.”

With Sunday’s 4-1 win at San Francisco, the Dodgers have won 12 of 15 to move into second place, 4.5 games behind the D-backs in the NL West.

Given that, perhaps nothing will happen.

Then again.

Dodgers reliever Ronald Belisario, who received a one-game suspension for his actions during the seventh inning brawl on June 11, was quoted afterward, “Everybody knows that it’s not over yet.”

He went on to single out Montero, his teammate on Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic.

“He was the one that started that fight,” Belisario said. “That’s not right. He called it for sure” referring to Ian Kennedy’s supposed purpose pitch near the head of Zach Greinke that sparked both dugouts and bullpens to empty out on to the field.

“If he says it’s not over with, well, so be it. Hit me if he wants to,” Montero responded Sunday. “What are you going to do? He’s already said it. Let’s go. Do it. Don’t say it. Do it.”

So, does Montero expect to be thrown at?

“I don’t expect it,” he said. “I don’t care. If he do it, he do it. It will get me an extra free base.”

Greinke will be on the mound Monday, starting the opener of the series.

Kennedy takes the hill Tuesday.

“I don’t really want to talk about that,” he said. “It’s just another start; just act like I’m pitching again. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Added Gibson, “I’ll re-state this again: Anybody that thinks anybody would try to hit anybody in the head, it’s an illogical assumption. I don’t even know if I can say that there’s one person in the Major Leagues that could or would actually do that. Do people pitch inside? Yep. They’re going to today. They’re going to tomorrow. They’re going to the day after that. That’s part of the game. There are purposeful pitches. You can trace things way, way back in many of these things that go on and on and on, but we’re not going to do that.

“We know that they’re a different team,” he continued. “We have to play them—there’s less margin for error. They’re more formidable and we’ve got to deal with it.”

The Diamondbacks and Dodgers will meet seven more times in September.

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