Minnesota Twins pitcher ejected for throwing behind Chicago White Sox's Yermin Mercedes

The Minnesota Twins-Chicago White Sox feud continues to simmer.

After the White Sox's Yermin Mercedes hit a controversial ninth-inning homer in a blowout win the night before, Twins reliever Tyler Duffey was ejected when he threw behind Mercedes with the first pitch of the seventh inning in the Twins' 5-4 win Tuesday night.

Tensions were already high after Mercedes' homer on a 3-0 pitch from Twins infielder Willians Astudillo provided the final run in Monday's 16-4 blowout.

Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli said he sensed his players weren't happy with Mercedes' actions. And White Sox skipper Tony La Russa may have given them tacit approval to retaliate when he criticized his player for not respecting the game or his opponents.

The result was almost inevitable.

Baldelli was also ejected after he came out to argue with home plate umpire Jim Reynolds.

After the game, La Russa said that he didn't have any issues with what the Twins did against Mercedes.

“It wasn’t obvious to me,” La Russa said after the game. “The guy threw a sinker. It didn’t look good. So, I wasn’t that suspicious. I’m suspicious if somebody throws at somebody’s head. Then I’m suspicious. I don’t have a problem with how the Twins handled that.”

The incident also came one day after Kevin Pillar of the New York Mets suffered multiple facial fractures after he was hit (unintentionally) by Atlanta Braves pitcher Jacob Webb - once again calling into question how necessary some of baseball's so-called "unwritten rules" are.

Contributing: The Associated Press.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Twins reliever Tyler Duffey ejected for throwing at Yermin Mercedes