Atlanta Braves Benches Clear, Freddie Freeman Tossed, Brian McCann Stands Strong At Home Plate

Braves lose to Brewers 4-0 but the main story was the 1st inning bench clearing stirrup.  Carlos Gomez hits a bomb (and I admit it was a bomb) but the immaturity of the young player showed as he jawed to almost every infielder on the Braves team.

Take a look at the video…

Freddie Freeman was ejected for supposedly throwing punches but he said after the game that was ridiculous and said he never threw any punches.

Freddie went on to talk about what he said to Gomez when he was rounding first base, “I told him to act like he’s done it before and run around the bases.  The altercation at home plate, I just ran in and kind of moved the pile a little bit.  I don’t know if they just picked the biggest guy in the pile and kicked him out….I don’t know what was going on.”

“When you lose your best hitter before he even gets a whack at it but he got ejected,” Manager Fredi Gonzalez said.  “The one thing I will fight after seeing the video is I don’t want him being suspended for that.  We lost our three hitter for the game, ok fine, but I don’t want to lose him going forward.  I don’t think he did anything wrong to get that punishment.”

Brian McCann confronted Gomez about 10 feet up the third-base line, and the fight was on.  Both benches cleared and several players threw looked to throw a couple punches.  Gomez, Freeman and Gerald Laird were ejected.

Supposedly the beef between Gomez and Maholm dated back to June 23 at Miller Park, when a Maholm fastball struck Gomez in the left knee. Gomez was upset after that game and believing Maholm had intentionally struck him.

Maholm said after the game “he hit a homer, I threw a bad pitch and he decided to act like that.  If he thought I threw at him on purpose, he hit a homer and if that’s how you want to get back at me, great.  But at least act like you’ve done it before and play the game the right way.”

Gomez story after the game, “He hit me for no reason and I tried to get it back today, it was the only opportunity that I had and that’s what I did.  I didn’t say anything bad, I just said you hear me…I hit you, now we are even.  That’s all I said.”

“It was a weird set of circumstances, I’ve never seen it before…I don’t know if  history is there or not but I think both teams were surprised on how it went down.  You hit a home run, ok you made a statement but to behave the way he did around the bases was embarrassing for a professional baseball player to act that way.”