Kyle Taylor, Valdosta Today Sports
ATLANTA – On September 25th of 2013, the Braves and Brewers had a controversial moment when Brian McCann and Freddie Freeman thought Carlos Gomez took his celebration of hitting a home run a little too far. McCann stood in front of home plate as Gomez was about to cross the plate and the two had a few words for one another.
On Thursday night, the teams met again in what would involve another heated moment between the two.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, Brewers reliever, Will Smith, was ejected for a foreign substance on his forearm. The shine of the pine tar caught the attention of Braves manager, Fredi Gonzalez, who kept a close watch on Smith to see if his hand reached for the front part of his right arm.
As expected, Smith reached for the pine tar and Fredi brought it to the attention of second base umpire, Jim Joyce. Smith was then ejected from the game.
Fredi Gonzalez told MLB.com, “When [an opponent] tries to be that blatant, sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.” When Brewers manager, Craig Counsell, was asked about the incident he said, “We’re going to try to beat them the next three days. That’s the best retaliation.”
As the pitcher was heading back to the clubhouse, he shouted a few expletives towards the Braves dugout, as if to say, “I cheated, but it is your fault.”
The incident seemed to wake up the bats of the Braves, which had only scored two runs up until that point and were up 2-1. The hit parade continued with a Jace Peterson base hit which scored Simmons. From there the Braves would tally five more runs in the seventh and add two more in the eighth. That made the final score 10-1 in the first game of four with Milwaukee.
Julio Teheran (3-1) was the starter for the Braves and was attempting to rebound from some early season struggles. Teheran finished with a line of 7 IP, 2 hits, 1 earned run, 1 walk, and 8 strikeouts.
Teheran told SportSouth, “I’ve been trying to get back on track and I showed today that I’ve been working really hard to get my fastball over for strikes. Hopefully that will get more wins for us.”
This was the second time this season that the Braves scored double digit runs. The other was on April 28th, in a 13-12 loss to the Nationals.
With the pitching coming together and the bats continuing to exceed expectations, the Braves are now at .500 on the season with a 20-20 record.
Interestingly enough, Atlanta’s win and the Padres loss gives the Braves a full game lead for fourth place over San Diego, who traded most of their farm system to the Braves in the offseason.
Last season, Michael Pineda of the Yankees, was hit with a ten game suspension after umpires found pine tar hidden on his neck. Will Smith will likely face the same type of suspension very soon.
Reports are that third baseman, Chris Johnson, will make his return to the lineup next Thursday in San Francisco.
Tomorrow night the Braves will send Alex Wood (2-2) to the hill against Brewers pitcher, Wily Peralta (1-5) with a 7:35 first pitch from Turner Field. Wood has been pitching better of late, but will look to throw less pitches and give up less hits. The Braves will try to continue to take advantage of this series against the team with the worst record in the National League.
