Suspensions for Sunday’s Steel City skirmish are in, and as expected, Milwaukee’s Martin Maldonado and Carlos Gomez were dealt the stiffest penalties.
Maldonado will be suspended five games after blind-siding Pittsburgh’s Travis Snider with a jab to the left eye, a punch that left Snider with a nasty bruise because he was wearing sunglasses during the melee. Gomez gets three games for escalating the situation — twice — and there may be a “repeat offender” line of reasoning here, too. On the Pittsburgh side of things, Snider was handed a two-game ban, while Russell Martin — who got the most heated after Maldonado’s punch — also gets a game off for touching an umpire. All four players were also fined. Gerrit Cole, who started the spat by barking at Gomez but backed out before things got physical, was not punished by the league.
Gomez is already appealing, according to Fox’s Jon Morosi. That much was probably safe to assume, given Gomez’s comments immediately following the game on Sunday. Maldonado, who knew a suspension was coming, will not appeal and will start serving his suspension tonight against San Diego.
The Maldonado suspension may end up giving the Brewers more problems than any ban Gomez ends up with. As one of only two catchers on the Brewers’ 40-man roster, Maldonado’s ban leaves the Brewers without a backup if starter Jonathan Lucroy were to get hurt in the middle of a game. Their emergency catcher, outfield Logan Schafer is currently on the disabled list with a hamstring injury. If Gomez’s appeal is heard and denied before Maldonado’s time served is up, the Brewers will have to play with only 23 active players.
