Carlos Gomez calls out Astros pitcher: 'What kind of man are you?'
The Texas Rangers might be on the verge of mathematical elimination, but outfielder Carlos Gomez still has plenty of fight left in him. On Monday night, he directed it at Houston Astros pitcher and ex-teammate Collin McHugh.
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The two of them got into a shouting match on the field, leading to the benches clearing and then they continued to throw barbs at each other in the clubhouse following the game. In particular, Gomez questioned McHugh’s manhood a couple of times. Like this quote, via John Henry of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
“What kind of man are you? I have nothing against this team, I have something against him.”
Ahh yes, there’s some baseball beef for you. The fireworks on the field started in the second inning when McHugh threw a pitch inside to Gomez. Gomez then fouled off the next pitch and his momentum took him out of the batter’s box a few steps. He stared at McHugh and the two of them began to jaw at each other.
Soon enough, Gomez has walking out toward the pitcher’s mound and the benches were clearing. Gomez seemed angry, but McHugh seemed more surprised all this was happening. Gomez wasn’t buying the surprised face, though. He says McHugh hit him with a pitch in August and was yelling at him in May during an altercation with another Astros pitcher, Lance McCullers.
Gomez, it should be noted, played for the Astros in parts of 2015 and 2016 before he was released and signed with the rival Rangers.
After the game, Gomez did not hold back, telling reporters, including the Star-Telegram and Levi Weaver of WFAA:
“So, last time I faced him he hit me right away. No one said anything about that, but I react to something, I’m the troublemaker. How am I supposed to react?
“I just react and told him, ‘What do you want? You want to do this or do you want to play baseball?’ … I waited for him last time and he run like a little cat. You want to be tough when there are 50 men outside or do you want to be tough when you have me face-to-face and no one around?”
“He’s not man enough to tell me face-to-face. So he tells one of the people that work over there that he’s going to hit me. So he did. If you’re a real man, you tell me to my face. Don’t send me a message. I’m a man, I go out to you, personally, and you run away. So what kind of man you are?”
McHugh’s comments — via MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart — were much less confrontational, but still made it clear there’s a problem between the two of them:
“The second pitch, he took a big swing and fouled it off and took about five steps out toward the mound, looking me straight in the eye. I just asked him if we had a problem. It was a rhetorical question because, clearly, he’s got a problem with me. I don’t exactly know what it is, but whatever the case, he came out and I asked him what the issue was and he said, ‘Yeah, I got a problem with you.’ That was it. Everybody else was out there by that point in time. The game goes on. I don’t want to spend any more mental effort thinking about Carlos Gomez.”
The Rangers and Astros play twice more this week. If you like baseball beef, those games might be worth keeping an eye on.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
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