Giants-Rockies fight sparks with punches thrown after Rafael Devers moonshot

Rafael Devers is tearing the cover off of the ball right now to fully erase his slow start after being traded to the San Francisco Giants. He was just named co-NL Player of the Week, and deservedly so after hitting four home runs and two doubles with 11 RBI and a 1.563 OPS for the Giants. And he didn't stop early on Tuesday night, which was not to the liking of Colorado Rockies starter Kyle Freeland.

In the first inning of the NL West matchup, Devers tattooed a ball to right. And at Coors Field, there was never a doubt that he had left the yard once again. But apparently — because we only caught a brief glimpse of it from the broadcast — Devers might've admired the long ball longer than Freeland and the Rockies would've liked.

When the camera panned back from watching the ball enter the bleachers, Devers was turned toward Freeland as the two were exchanging loud, what seemed like unfriendly language. That cleared the benches and it only got uglier from there.

It appeared that Matt Chapman and Willy Adames immediately came out and threw punches and more punches were thrown as the benches cleared. Eventually, the dust settled, and none of it was really good for anyone with the way it played out.

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Rafael Devers home run sparks benches-clearing Giants-Rockies brawl

Devers' blast gave the Giants an early 2-0 lead in Colorado, but the fact of the matter is that it might've proved more costly for San Francisco than not because of the extracurriculars after the play and the punches being thrown.

Both Chapman and Adames were ejected from the game as a result, which forced the Giants to scramble a bit defensively, including sending Devers, coincidentally, to third base with a glove at the end of the inning. Which also means that the Giants slugger wasn't ejected, though Freeland was for his role in the proceedings.

Another angle of the brawl shows that Freeland, indeed, took offense to the way Devers admired his work, and then started walking at the home-run hitter, which began the jawing at one another — and things obviously escalated from there.

Look, I get it that pitchers don't exactly appreciate being shown up. But let's just be as real about this situation as we possibly can. Freeland, a pitcher with a 5.41 ERA, doesn't have much of a right to get that heated over what was happening. That's especially true when playing at Coors — this is kind of just what happens at that ballpark.

Beyond that, it's also worth noting that this isn't Devers' first run-in with the Rockies, though it is his first with San Francisco. Last season, while with the Red Sox, then-Colorado starter Cal Quantrill started a kerfuffle after some off-color comments at Boston's catcher at the time, Reese McGuire. Benches cleared then, too, so it's not like there's not at least a spot of bad blood between Devers and this team.

At the same time, it's quite shocking to see how much this escalated. That's on Freeland, at the end of the day, even if the Giants also ultimately paid the price with the ejections.