A red-hot slugger admiring a home run and a frustrated left-hander toiling for one of the worst teams in major league history intersected at Coors Field, resulting in a benches-clearing fracas.
And the craziest season in Rafael Devers’ decorated career took yet another turn Tuesday, Sept. 2 when the San Francisco Giants faced the Colorado Rockies.
Devers hit his 30th home run of 2025 off Rockies lefty Kyle Freeland, the fourth 30-homer season of his career, but like everything else in Devers’ world this year, it did not go to form.
Freeland, who lugged a 5.28 ERA into his start against San Francisco, took offense to Devers’ time getting to first base and stepped toward him on the base paths screaming in protest.
That prompted the Giants’ bench to stream out to defend Devers, with third baseman Matt Chapman giving Freeland a shove back toward the mound, earning an ejection.
And it resulted in one of the longest trips around the bases in major league history, Devers completing the circuit only after order was restored and Freeland, Chapman and San Francisco’s Willy Adames were ejected – nearly 10 minutes after he deposited the baseball in the right field seats.
The long ball continued a recent heater for Devers, who has hit seven homers in his past 15 games and posted a 1.175 OPS in that span. Freeland, meanwhile, has given up 21 home runs for the 39-100 Rockies, who are on pace for 116 losses.
If nothing else, the incident showed that the Giants certainly have Devers’ back. He got off to a slow start after a stunning trade from the Boston Red Sox on June 15, but is back to his typically robust level of production: an .879 OPS, including a .383 on-base percentage, and 96 RBIs.
‘I think that’s what a team does,’ Devers told reporters via a translator. ‘We’re a very united team, and I think in situations like that, that’s what we should do: stick up for each other.”
Said Freeland: “I just found it extremely disrespectful to show me up like that in the first inning after hitting the home run, standing there watching it, taking your sweet time, getting (to) first base. Been in this league for quite some time. I know he has as well. I just find that extremely disrespectful and felt that I needed to let him know about that.”
The trade from Boston was the endgame of a tumultuous sequence that began when the Red Sox signed Alex Bregman, who offered to play second base and keep Devers at third. Instead, a messy stare-down between Devers and the club ultimately resulted in Devers moving to designated hitter.
When first baseman Triston Casas went down with a season-ending injury, the Red Sox again asked Devers to move there. But Devers balked, having settled in at DH, and rather than keeping a Silver Slugger bat in the lineup, Boston traded him to San Francisco, where he was given the runway to adapt to first base comfortably.
It all came full circle, in a sense, at Coors Field: After the ejections of Chapman and Adames, the shorthanded Giants shuffled their lineup around and … Devers ended up at third base.
Right where he was when this crazy season started.
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