Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised that 38-year-old Novak Djokovic has now reached the semifinals at all four grand slam events this season.
In today’s SI:AM:
🔮 NFL predictions
🏈 Which conference is best?
📈 NFL draft risers
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Tensions running high
The baseball season is winding down, but several players last night seemed to be all wound up.
A pair of ugly incidents unfolded in two different games on Tuesday—one in which the benches cleared and another in which frustration between teammates appeared to boil over.
First, in Colorado, the Rockies and Giants emptied the benches after Kyle Freeland took issue with Rafael Devers’ admiring his first-inning home run for too long. Later, in Houston, Astros pitcher Framber Valdez appeared to intentionally drill César Salazar, his own catcher, with a pitch.
We’ll start with the Rockies-Giants incident. In the top of the first inning, Freeland hung a sweeper right over the heart of the plate that Devers pulled deep to right. After he swung, Devers remained at the plate and stood to watch the flight of the ball. Whether he was taunting or waiting to see if it had enough juice to clear the tall fence is open to interpretation, but it’s clear what Freeland thought. After the ball landed and Devers began his home run trot, Freeland started barking at him. Devers barked back, and then the benches cleared.
It took eight minutes for order to be restored and for Devers to finally finish his trot. After the dust settled, Freeland and Giants infielders Matt Chapman and Willy Adames were ejected from the game.
Things got HEATED between the Rockies and Giants after Rafael Devers homered 😳
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) September 3, 2025
(via @NBCSGiants)pic.twitter.com/5Gj7xRRWbJ
“I found it extremely disrespectful to show me up like that in the first inning,” Freeland said after the game.
Devers maintained that he wasn’t trying to disrespect Freeland.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Devers said in Spanish. “I didn’t do anything different from when I hit a home run. I don’t know why it bothered him.”
The incident in Houston also began with a home run. With the bases loaded in the top of the fifth inning of the Astros’ game against the Yankees, Valdez grooved a fastball over the middle of the plate and Trent Grisham lifted it the other way over the Crawford Boxes for a grand slam.
Two pitches later, Valdez threw a fastball that hit Salazar in the torso. Salazar had called for a curveball, but Valdez brought the heat instead and the pitch took Salazar by surprise. Now, it isn’t unusual for pitchers and catchers to get crossed up (although less common now that the PitchCom device has mostly replaced hand signals), but Valdez showed no remorse for plunking his catcher. Instead, he glared toward Salazar. Valdez said later that it was a genuine mistake.
“He’s my teammate. He’s always here for me,” Valdez said of Salazar, speaking through an interpreter. “I don’t ever want to cause any harm to my teammate. It was something that I excused myself with. I [got] crossed up by mistake and I hit him by mistake.”
There is reason to believe that Valdez was ticked off, though. Immediately before the pitch that led to the Grisham homer, Salazar tried to motion to Valdez to get him to step off the mound. Valdez began his windup anyway and Grisham hit the pitch out of the park.
There’s speculation that Astros pitcher Framber Valdez purposely crossed up his catcher Cesar Salazar and hit him with this pitch after Salazar told him to step off before allowing a grand slam pic.twitter.com/ds3c9MzQV6
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 3, 2025
Valdez and Salazar were both summoned by bench coach Omar López for a meeting in manager Joe Espada’s office after the game, Chandler Rome of The Athletic reported.
Salazar said the cheers from all the Yankees fans in Houston made it hard to hear and that he pressed the wrong button on the PitchCom.
“It was a big spot for the Yankees,” Salazar said. “The stadium was loud and I thought I pressed the button, but I pressed the wrong button and I was expecting another pitch, but that was it. I pressed the wrong button and yeah, that’s what it was.”
But Valdez also admitted to purposefully ignoring the call from Salazar.
“I called for that pitch, I threw it and we got crossed up,” Valdez said through an interpreter. “When we got down to the dugout, I excused myself with [Salazar] and I said sorry to him and I take full responsibility for that.”
But Valdez does not wear a PitchCom device on the mound, so it’s impossible for him to “call for” a pitch.
“It wasn't necessary that I called it. It was just the pitch I had in mind,” Valdez clarified. “He called for a curveball, but I was already in mind that I was going to throw a sinker so that’s what I threw and that’s what happened.”
Whether Valdez threw the fastball because he wanted to get back at Salazar or because he was stubbornly ignoring his catcher’s call, it’s a bad look.
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- After just one weekend, the bowl landscape has shifted dramatically, with North Carolina falling from contention for a top-tier game and the potential continuation of a coaching spat in the ReliaQuest Bowl.
The top five…
… things I saw last night:
5. Carla Leite’s ballhandling on a sweet layup.
4. A valiant effort by the Rockies fan who tried to catch a home run but instead ended up falling out of his chair.
3. Clayton Kershaw’s quick reflexes to snag a comebacker.
2. Cal Raleigh’s 51st homer of the season.
1. Shohei Ohtani’s 120 mph rocket for his 100th homer as a Dodger. That’s the sixth-fastest exit velocity on a home run in the Statcast era.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Rafael Devers, Framber Valdez at the Heart of Drama-Filled Night in MLB .
