" Those who wondered if the comments of Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips a day earlier calling the Cardinals a bunch of big babies would create any bad blood, got their answer Tuesday.

A seven-minute melee opened the bottom of the first inning when Phillips stepped into the batter's box, tapped his bat to catcher Yadier Molina's shinguard in the usual ritual. Molina took umbrage, pushed the bat away and stood up to confront Phillips, emptying the dugouts and bullpens.

The meet-and-greet deteriorated into some shoving and a scrape between Cards ace Chris Carpenter and Reds third baseman Scott Rolen.

The scrum moved toward the backstop, pinning starting pitcher Johnny Cueto with his back against the screen, flailing away with his spikes to keep the Cardinals at bay. Former Reds catcher Jason LaRue caught a direct, hard kick to the head, and Carpenter was gashed in the back.

In the Cardinals' post-game clubhouse, the anger was much more with Cueto than with Phillips, whose comments of Monday had created the tension.

Phillips wouldn't talk about the fight. "Regardless of what happened, we lost," he said. "I'm just mad that we lost the game."

Despite the cuts and scrapes to some Cardinals' players, it's hard to fault Cueto: He was fighting to fend off serious injury.

"He was trying to break things up (at first), then as soon as he knew he had 20 people pushing him up against the net," said Reds catcher Ramon Hernandez, translating. "He got scared … nervous, a lot. His back was to the wall. He was trying to get people out of the way so he could get out."

Things seemed to settle down before the scrum began moving to the backstop, but a pocket of swinging in that pile is what re-lit the smoldering fuse, and the battle was on."