Major League Baseball has suspended Giants third baseman Matt Chapman for a game and fined fellow Giants Willy Adames and Rafael Devers, as well as Rockies left-hander Kyle Freeland for their parts in Tuesday’s benches-clearing spat. Chapman has appealed his punishment and will not sit out until a hearing can be held.
Said incident took place two batters into Tuesday’s contest, when three players were ejected. The aforementioned Devers — who has been on fire of late — hit a two-run shot to right field and apparently admired it far too long for Freeland’s tastes.
Freeland started yelling at Devers, Devers yelled back and, well, you get the picture. And the benches cleared.
A better angle to see Freeland start yelling at Devers is here:
In this highlight, you can see Chapman get to Freeland and shove him — that shove is why MLB elected to suspend him. Chapman was ejected along with Adames. On the Rockies’ end, Freeland was ejected.
We don’t often see brawls during home run trots, right? There was a Carlos Gomez home run in Atlanta a decade ago with reactions on both sides that basically caused a fight during his entire home run trot, but he made it within a few feet of home plate before Braves catcher Brian McCann was blocking him from getting there, but this brawl happened when Devers was on his way to second.
The best part of the whole situation, then, was Devers finishing his home run trot after the teams returned to their benches and the Rockies were getting Freeland’s replacement, Antonio Senzatela, ready to take over.
Devers before this game was 12 for 23 with two doubles, four homers and 10 RBI in his previous six games.
Also, the Giants entered the game having won eight of their last nine games to climb back to .500 and within five games of a playoff spot.