I supposed I could be irritated and angered by what I saw but that would not accurately reflect my feelings. Rather, I find it quite humorous that Carlos Gomez’s reaction to blasting a three-run home run with his team down 15-0 was to celebrate. Excessively. Before I get into the story of what happened, some background is needed. Carlos Gomez was a top outfield prospect in the Mets organization and was traded to the Twins as part of the now one-sided Johan Santana deal. Dissatisfied after two seasons of poor production by Gomez, the Twins dealt him to the Brewers for shortstop J.J. Hardy. Friday night was Gomez’s first game against his former team and also his first game since being activated from the disabled list.
The Twins jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first inning before David Bush could get two outs. Minnesota scored an additional five runs in the 4th off long reliever Jeff Suppan to make it 12-0. With one run in the 5th and two more runs in the 7th, the Twins were up 15-0 by the time Gomez came to the plate for Milwaukee in the 8th. With two men on, Gomez blasted a Nick Blackburn offering into the upper deck. Gomez slowly let his bat go upon completing the swing and the bat actually hit catcher Joe Mauer on the hands. Gomez proceeded to walk the next five or so steps while admiring his bomb before breaking into a slow trot around the bases. Gomez totally milked his home run and took his time strolling around the bases. When he finally got to homeplate, Gomez seemed to have a confident “It’s all me” look on his face as he accepted high fives from teammates.
Gomez’s antics were no different from a football player who celebrates after scoring a touchdown with his team down 55-0 — the two plays are equally selfish and embarrassing. The thing is, if Gomez is misguided enough to think he’s won by hitting an upper deck home run against his former team while they’re down 15-0, then you really have to feel badly for him. Clearly Gomez doesn’t get it.
UPDATE: Apparently Gomez does get it. He was extremely apologetic after the game and acknowledged how wrong he was.
“Right now, I feel bad because Blackburn is one of the good friends I’ve got over there. I apologized because I don’t want to try to show him up. If they’re going to do something tomorrow, I’ll take it like a man because I know I did bad.
“I feel, right now, real bad for this,” Gomez said. “It was not the right moment to do it. I wasn’t thinking, ‘If I hit a home run, I’m going to do this.’ It happened in the moment, and it happened. We have to be more professional.”
