Gomez: "I'm not apologizing for nothing I did today. This is my job, I've been doing it for eight years like that. They know I play like that. It's not to disrespect nobody," Gomez said, reported Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. "I heard something I don't like. I don't think [Cole's] the one who tells me what I have to do. I don't tell him what he needs to do to pitch." He also made statements that other guys watch it and nobody cares - even pointed out 3 different examples of Pirates that did it in the series. Gomez flips his bat quite often, it's just what he does. And even if he WAS admiring it, it was only a second or two. Watch Ortiz or Soriano or Pujols. They stare down every deep fly ball, even the ones that are caught. Soriano goes to an extreme and NOTHING is ever said or done about it. What Gomez did was really quite minimal. You can see something like that or worst on probably 50% of the HR in the league. Yet when him or Braun do it, immediate jerks. Cole: 'If you're going to hit a home run, you can watch it. If you're going to hit a fly ball to center field, don't watch it," per MLB.com. "I didn't curse at him, I didn't try to provoke a fight. I was frustrated, and I let my emotions get the better of me and I ended up getting one of my teammates hurt, so I'm not too thrilled about it." So let me get this straight on three levels. 1 - You're in a 0-0 game in the third inning...you're pitching well. Gomez hits a triple and you get frustrated. He wasn't getting shelled. There hadn't been 3 errors in the inning. Gomez was only the second base runner of the game I believe. That's all it takes to frustrate you? Maybe you're frustrated by your pitch but that's your own problem. 2 - You aren't trying to start a fight. You got the ball, the proceeded to GO OUT OF YOUR WAY to approach Gomez. Yelled directly at him. Nobody knows what was said (but Gomez said he used the F word). How is that not trying to start something? You approached someone and yelled that them, what exactly did you think Gomez was going to do? 3 - Cole DID instigate the fight, then as soon as he saw Gomez was fired up and yelled back, Cole basically ran away and hid behind all of his teammates. In no way do I promote physical violence on the playing field, but if you're going to get frustrated and yell at an opposing player like that, at least be a big enough man to stand your ground if that player gets upset by your verbal abuse. Don't go hide behind your teammates, especially when you have a pretty large size advantage. Oh and I just saw this from Russell Martin...you stay classy Mr. Martin: Russell Martin: "The fair thing would be for our team to hold down Maldonado so Travis (Snider) can go back and sucker punch him in the face"