Miguel Cabrera, Tigers brawl Austin Romine and the Yankees

Tigers star Miguel Cabrera and Yankees backup catcher Austin Romine came to punches at home plate on Thursday. Both benches cleared.

In the fifth inning, Tigers starter Michael Fulmer hit Gary Sanchez, who has homered in each of the three games this series. It was almost certainly unintentional, and everyone appeared to go on with their days.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Yankees reliever Tommy Kahnle threw a pitch behind Miguel Cabrera. Home plate umpire Carlos Torres ejected Kahnle. This brought Joe Girardi out of the dugout, rather unpleased. He, too, was ejected.

Aroldis Chapman relieved Kahnle, when Romine — brother of Tiger utilityman Andrew Romine — and Cabrera jawed a bit at home plate. Whatever Romine said was not what Cabrera wanted to hear at the moment. That led to push. Push led to shove. Shove led to, well, this:

Sanchez got in a couple of cheat shots during the original brawl as well:

This happened, too:

Cabrera and Romine were both ejected, and the Yankees lost their DH when Sanchez had to move to catcher.

Things escalated again in the bottom of the seventh when Dellin Betances hit James McCann with a pitch in the helmet:

The benches cleared again and Betances was ejected.

The dugouts emptied a third time in the eighth inning when Alex Wilson plunked Todd Frazier.

Wilson and Ausmus were both ejected, bringing the numbers of ejections between the two teams to eight.