What started out as a friendly introduction between the Braves and the Marlins dynamic young ace Jose Fernandez in a Braves victory two weeks ago at Turner Field devolved into something else altogether Wednesday night in Miami.
The final outing of Fernandez’s NL rookie-of-the-year caliber season will be remembered for a benches-clearing confrontation after the emotional young pitcher admired his first career home run in the middle of a 5-2 win over the Braves.
A game that began with Fernandez shaking veteran Braves catcher Brian McCann’s hand before his first at-bat soured with McCann scolding Fernandez for the three or four seconds he stood at home plate admiring his home run.
Benches and bullpens cleared, and a rivalry that hasn’t had this kind of electricity since about 1997 heated back up with some pushing and shoving.
“I just told him you can’t do that,” McCann said. “You can get someone hurt. It’s something that didn’t need to happen.”
Fernandez had been reacting to the way Evan Gattis dropped his bat to admire a home run he hit off Fernandez in the top of the sixth inning. But the Braves said Gattis was responding to some of Fernandez’s antics earlier in the game. And they didn’t appreciate Fernandez yelling into the Braves dugout as he walked off the field after the Braves’ half of the sixth inning was over.
“It’s one of those things that probably immaturity a little bit,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “He’s a playful guy on the mound and he likes to have fun, and we like to have fun too. If he’s going to play that game, the playfulness game - which is fine - then he shouldn’t get upset when we hit a home run and have fun ourselves….You can’t have it both ways.”
The Braves had seen first-hand during their 2-1 win over Fernandez Aug. 30, how loose and wide-open the 21-year-old Cuba native he is on the mound – when he smiled and spoke to both McCann and Freddie Freeman during the course of their at-bats. But the Braves didn’t appreciate seeing some of that again on Wednesday night.
“There were some guys in the dugout that weren’t too happy with all the smiling after getting people out or stuff like that,” said Chris Johnson, who was the first Brave to rush in toward the plate after McCann had words for Fernandez.
“Justin (Upton) crushed a ball and it got caught, and he’s watching him walk back to the dugout smiling,” Johnson said. “Stuff like that. I think that’s why (Evan) Gattis was a little upset.”
Johnson appeared to have some verbal back-and-forth with Fernandez during his sixth inning at-bat that ended with a flyout on a hard-hit ball to left field. TV replays showed Johnson yelling as he crossed first base.
“Kid’s a good pitcher,” Johnson said afterward. “He’s wired up. I’m wired up.”
But Johnson said he didn’t get angry until he saw Fernandez stand on the plate to watch his homer off Mike Minor clear the fence and land in the Braves bullpen - “He stood there for a while, and that’s disrespectful to Mike; that was bad,” Johnson said – and then spit at the ground near third base as he rounded the bases, not far from where Johnson was standing.
“The only thing that made me angry was the gesture around third base,” Johnson said. “Tempers high. Kid’s a good pitcher. He’s got some other stuff going on that upsets people sometimes and it’ll work itself out.”
It took a benches-clearing confrontation to make Wednesday’s game memorable for something other than Giancarlo Stanton’s 436 foot home run to straightaway center field off Minor.
Stanton reached out to get a two-strike curveball on the outer half and still drove it into the alley underneath the batter’s eye for a two-run homer, his 20th of the year.
Minor gave up five runs (four earned) on 11 hits, including Fernandez’s homer, as the he took his second loss of this trip.
“As soon as he hit it, I came up here and looked at it,” Minor said. “It was knee-high, it was on the black on the outer half, and he crushed it to right center and that’s a long ways out there. It wasn’t like a great swing and he still just hit it, squared it up.”
As soon as the game ended, the Marlins went into damage control. Manager Mike Redmond talked to Fernandez in private. Fernandez went over to the Braves clubhouse and apologized to both Minor and McCann in the hallway outside. Then Fernandez apologized during his postgame press conference.
“I feel embarrassed,” Fernandez told reporters. “I feel like I don’t deserve to be here because this isn’t high school any more. This is the professional game and there should be professional players doing what you’re supposed to do. I don’t think that should ever happen and I’m embarrassed. I made a mistake and I’m going to learn from it.”
Fernandez, who was making the last start before reaching a Marlins-imposed innings limit, had an impressive night despite the antics. He pitched seven innings, allowing only one run on Gattis’ homer, and finished the season undefeated at Marlins Park at 9-0 with a 1.19 ERA in 15 starts.
That’s probably not what this night will be remembered for, though.
“We don’t show teams up,” Redmond said after the game. “We hit the ball and we run. That’s it. We respect the game. We respect the other team. We’re 30-some games under .500. Those guys are going to the playoffs.”
The Braves magic number held at seven and their NL East lead dropped to 11 games with the Nationals’ victory, as narrow as it’s been since July 31.
That’s probably why the Braves players got together after the game, and McCann spoke, and they came away determined to put the incident behind them.
“It’s over,” Johnson said.
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