Matt Bush Hits Jose Bautista, Texas Rangers Fans Fall in Love

Matt Bush has an amazing comeback story and his first appearance in the majors on Friday night was Disney movie levels of unbelievable. During his second appearance on Sunday all he did was completely endear himself to every Texas Rangers fan on the planet.

Bush entered the game against the Toronto Blue Jays in the top of the seventh and got the final two outs of the inning. When he returned to the mound in the top of the eighth, Jose Bautista was set to lead off. In case you’re somehow unaware, Bautista is Public Enemy No. 1 in Ranger-land after this epic bat-flip in the ALDS last season:

On the first pitch to Bautista, the 30-year-old Bush plunked him with a 98 mph fastball to the ribs. Bautista took exception to the pitch and jawed at both Bush and the Rangers dugout before walking to first base.

" Matt Bush just earned a ton of respect in the clubhouse. #Rangers pic.twitter.com/1YhovX4d65 — Mike (@TXMIKE817) May 15, 2016 "

Bush absolutely endeared himself to the rest of the guys on the Rangers’ roster by hitting Bautista. And to his credit, it was clean, he didn’t go for the head or the legs, he went right for Joey Bats’ midsection, which is what you’re supposed to do.

For those of you who think maybe the pitch just got away from Bush, the guy has absolutely lived in the strike zone during his comeback, and this came on the first pitch of the at-bat. There is zero chance it wasn’t intentional.

After Bush retired the next batter, Rangers manager Jeff Banister took him out and he got a loud standing ovation from Rangers fans at Globe Life Park. It was a brilliant move by Banister to have Bush dish out the plunking as well. He’s new to the squad and it will immediately earn him a ton of respect in that clubhouse. His teammates will now be even more invested in seeing him succeed and overcome his demons.

As we know now, that incident led to an ugly benches-clearing brawl later in the inning, but Rangers fans were already in love with their new pitcher. Here’s a sampling from Twitter:

On top of it all, Bush notched his first big league win in the process. Quite a day for him, and the Rangers.