The Red Sox need to stop throwing at Manny Machado — and never should have started
COMMENTARYMajor League Baseball has come a long way in the last few decades in terms of embracing logic, reason, and studious, fact-based decision-making. Arguably no team has benefitted more from that intellectual evolution than the Red Sox, who, by embracing advanced analysis and cold, objective thinking, have transformed from a supposedly cursed franchise to one of its most successful, winning three World Series in the last 13 years. Unfortunately, throughout the league, that embrace of reason too often fails to extend to the players themselves.Over the last two weeks, the Red Sox and Orioles have engaged in an age-old baseball ritual entirely divorced from the brain’s higher processes. That ritual is known as self-policing. This particular sequence of events started on Friday April 21, in the bottom of the eighth inning of the Orioles 2-0 victory over the Red Sox in Baltimore. Orioles third baseman Manny Machado led off the inning with a single and, as you’ve surely seen hundreds of times by now, on his slide into second base on Mark Trumbo’s subsequent grounder to shortstop, spiked Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia in the left leg. Pedroia had to leave the game and missed Boston’s next three contests with swelling and soreness in his left ankle and knee. That Sunday, in the final game of that series, with the Red Sox up 6-0 in the eighth inning, Red Sox reliever Matt Barnes’s first pitch to Machado sailed directly at the head of the Orioles’s star, earning Barnes an immediate ejection and a four-game suspension. When the teams reconvened in Boston for this week’s series, Baltimore’s Game 1 starter, Dylan Bundy, hit Mookie Betts in the upper thigh with a 2-1 pitch with one out and the bases empty and the O’s up 2-0 in the sixth inning. Bundy said after the game that he didn’t intend to hit Betts, but on Tuesday, Red Sox ace Chris Sale’s first pitch to Machado went behind Machado’s knees, leading to both benches being warned, and prompting pointed and profanity-laced post-game comments from Machado.This needs to stop. The most obvious reason why is that Machado, Betts, Sale and Bundy are the most valuable hitter and pitcher, respectively, on each team. Not only should neither team be willing to risk an injury, suspension, or even just an ejection by any of those players, but MLB as a whole would suffer should any of those players miss significant time. Yet, even if this self-policing garbage was only taking place among the Matt Barnes and, say, Caleb Josephs of each roster, it would be unacceptable, immature, and an embarrassment to both teams.Don’t get me wrong. I understand the impulse. When a perceived act of aggression occurs during the heat of physical competition, the natural response is to return that aggression in kind. What’s more, the traditions of the game hold up retaliation in subsequent innings or games as a more civilized form of retaliation than brawling on the spot, which, in the early days of the league, was far more common than it is today. However, I’d like to think the game has continued to progress since then. I’d like to think that, with the benefit of replay, the Red Sox’s reaction to Machado’s slide might have been based on more than Pedroia’s resulting injury and third-base coach Brian Butterfield’s inflamed reaction. I’d like to think that Barnes’ suspension might have settled the matter, or that Dustin Pedroia’s comments after that game absolving Machado of guilt and disapproving of Barnes’ throwing at Machado’s head would have ended things from the Red Sox’s side. I’d also like to think that Pedroia and Machado could have talked things out after the initial incident in a way that could have defused the situation. Heck, both have said publicly that there was no harmful intent in Machado’s slide. How is it that that hasn’t stopped the on-field retaliations?It seems clear to me that Machado’s slide was in no way dirty and the contact with Pedroia was accidental. Pedroia said as much that Sunday, telling reporters, “there’s zero intentions of him trying to hurt me. He just made a bad slide and did hurt me. It’s baseball, man. I’m not mad at him.” Machado’s slide was perfectly legal under the new sliding rules. He slid before and directly to the bag, making his initial contact with the base. He didn’t come in with his spikes high, and he didn’t slide past the bag. He slid hard because he was trying to beat the throw and, contrary to the conclusion of the replay review, he did beat the throw, only to pop off the bag due to a poorly executed slide. In a demonstration on MLB Network last week, former Major League second basemen Harold Reynolds and Billy Ripken pointed out that the contact was most likely due to a less-than-perfect throw from Xander Bogarts, which forced Pedroia to keep his foot on the bag and reach for the throw like a first baseman, rather than field the throw chest high and move off the bag as second basemen are accustomed to doing. Reynolds and Ripken think contact also could have been averted via a pop-up slide from Machado, but the play came in a double-play situation and Machado may have stayed low anticipating a pivot throw from Pedroia, which Pedroia might have considered given a better feed from Bogaerts.
http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/7417714/v1319140183/
It was a slightly busted baseball play, but nothing more. That these two teams are still endangering each other and themselves over it two weeks later would be absurd if it weren’t so regrettable and, frankly, embarrassing, particularly for the Red Sox, whose retaliations have been more blatant.
For his part, Bundy denied throwing at Betts, and I’m tempted to believe him. He only had a 2-0 lead and was facing the heart of the order. Why put a man on intentionally to bring up the tying run? And if you are going to do that, why throw him three other pitches first? Bundy walked four men in that game, his catcher called for a pitch on the inside corner, and the pitch hit Betts in the thigh. At the very least, you have to allow for some doubt about his intent on that pitch. To be fair, Barnes also claimed his pitch, which actually hit Machado’s bat behind his head, was not intentional. That’s a harder sell given that it was the first pitch of an at-bat with a six-run lead, the catcher called for a pitch away, and the batter was Machado himself.
Either way, you would hope Sale, one of the game’s biggest stars, would rise above this mess. Last year, I criticized Machado for a tendency to overreact to perceived slights and tasked him with rising above the fray in future confrontations. He has done just that over the course of the last two weeks. Not only did he immediately extend a helping hand to Pedroia on the instigating slide, an instant show of concern neither Barnes nor Bundy exhibited, but when Barnes came up and in, he kept his cool, held his ground, and doubled off Barnes’ replacement. He also avoided acting out in any way against Sale on Tuesday other than to homer off the lefty later in the game. In previous years, Machado would have at the very least gotten into a shouting match with both pitchers and likely charged the mound against one or both of them. By that measure, his comments after Tuesday’s game, no matter how profane, were a sign of maturity from the 24-year-old. As I advised last year, he is letting his outstanding play serve as his retaliation.
Here’s hoping these two teams can learn from Machado’s example and move on from this pathetic sequence. The idea of settling things on the field in this manner, of self-policing, is antiquated and barbaric. There’s no place for that in baseball anymore. An eye for an eye just leaves everyone blind. The game is smarter than that now.
