Cole Carrigg, one of the National League's top rookies this season, will miss at least the Colorado Rockies' Sunday, Aug. 30 game at Atlanta for making an inappropriate gesture toward Braves fans in the Rockies' loss Saturday.
Carrigg, 24, made a diving effort on a Michael Harris II fly ball in the seventh inning Saturday but came up just short of a dazzling catch as it deflected off the top of his glove. Two runs scored on the play, giving Atlanta a 2-1 lead that held up for the victory.
As Braves fans cheered in the aftermath of the crucial sequence, Carrigg, with his back turned toward fans in center field, flipped the bird in their direction. The morning after, manager Warren Schaeffer announced Carrigg would be benched for Sunday's series
finale, and perhaps the start of their home series against Baltimore.
"Cole made a mistake – he knows that is an embarrassment to the organization and that we don’t stand for that," Schaeffar said Sunday, per MLB.com. "Listen, everybody makes mistakes. It’s just one that he has to learn from. It’s just that we will not put up with that here.
"So he is going to sit a couple days, because he’s a guy that wants to play every day. That’s the repercussions of this.”
Carrigg, who made his major league debut June 9, is a hard-nosed player who earlier this season had a brief altercation with Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing after scoring a go-ahead 10th-inning run.
"First, I apologize to my teammates and the organization – that’s not how I want to represent us,” Carrigg told reporters in Atlanta. "That’s inexcusable on my part.
"With that being said, I’m somebody who’s going to play at 110% every game and give my all to this team and to the game to try to win ballgames. That was a play that I felt could or could not have won the game, so I’m very passionate about that.
"Braves fans are pretty passionate themselves. Kudos to them. But that can’t happen."
Carrigg is capable of playing both shortstop and center field, and this season, he's posted a .345 on-base percentage and .789 OPS - 106 adjusted - for Colorado. He has six homers and eight steals in 11 attempts, completing a three-year rise after the Rockies drafted him in the second round in 2023.
Carrigg was high school teammates with Athletics slugger Tyler Soderstrom, and as he rose the ranks in amateur and pro ball, expected he'd arrive in the majors.
"You get to college and do it. You get to the minors and do it," he told USA TODAY Sports last week. "Each step prepares you and if you look at it with the right state of mind, you can tell yourself, ‘I’ve done it with these guys before, I’ve seen these guys in college. Why not me?’"
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rockies bench rookie Cole Carrigg for obscene gesture to Braves fans
