Grown UP tomatoes

I've got one tomato plant I've been confused about. It's my pear tomato plant. I bought it from Pflaum's. I'm not sure if it spent too much time in a cloche, but all of the growing has happened at ground level. Instead of growing up and branching out, it's sending branches out low on the plant. It looks like a little round tomato bush ball.

Tomato ball on the left. Grown UP tomato on the right.

I've been following Desperate Gardener and for Tomato Tuesday this week. She wrote about pruning tomato plants. I've been thinking about cutting off some of the horizontal stalks that are coming off the tomato ball that are using plant energy to grow out, to redirect the plant energy to going up, but they are thick, heavy branches and I don't want to kill the thing. It's already got flower buds and I'm afraid fruit that low to the ground will rot or attract pests.

After reading her post, I went for it! I trimmed up the tomato ball and suckers on the other plants. I knew this is what needed to happen, but it's nice to have confirmation from someone else. Codependent gardening? Nah, deferring to someone who knows more and has a grandma to back her up.