Was Dustin Pedroia being a bad teammate by making it clear he didn’t agree with brushback?

Debate the answer with Chad Finn and Boston sports fans at The Sports Q.

Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia stands in the dugout during a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles in Baltimore, Saturday, April 22. AP

By Chad Finn

April 24, 2017

2 minutes to read

Welcome to Boston.com’s Sports Q, our daily conversation, initiated by you and moderated by Chad Finn, about a compelling topic in Boston sports. Here’s how it works: You submit questions to Chad through Twitter, Facebook, email, his

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Matt Barnes obviously shouldn’t have thrown at Manny Machado’s head, but are you surprised Dustin Pedroia made it clear he disagreed with how the Red Sox handled the whole payback thing? Teammates first, bro. – Chris A.

I was. I mean, there’s a lot of stupid involved with this entire scenario – baseball’s macho unwritten-rules culture of “payback,’’ the idea that throwing at anyone’s head is ever a good idea, and Barnes/John Farrell’s decision to drill Machado two games after his hard, borderline reckless slide knocked Pedroia out for the rest of the series.

But it absolutely was odd to see Pedroia sitting in the dugout mouthing to Machado after the attempted beanball that it wasn’t his idea and he would have preferred to have done it in his first at-bat Saturday, which is the standard protocol in such petty matters.

Pedroia is perceived as the ultimate team guy, and for the most part that seems like an accurate image. But Barnes is out there doing what he surely thinks is sticking up for a teammate – and probably something his manager wanted — and then he sees that teammate in the dugout letting the opponent know that, hey man, it’s not my idea?

A player with a lesser reputation for being team-first might not get away with that.

What do you guys think? Should Pedroia have stuck up for Matt Barnes, even if it was a dumb idea with worse execution? Should he at least have not said anything to Machado in public? Or did he handle it correctly? Come at me — with the spikes high if you must — in the comments.