Remember how a few days ago Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado spiked Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia? (If not, familiarize yourself with the incident.) The Red Sox finally tried to retaliate on Sunday, and it resulted in an ejection.
With Boston up 6-0 in the eighth inning, reliever Matt Barnes was either tasked with or took it upon himself to give Machado a wake-up call. Alas, Barnes did more than throw inside to Machado -- he buzzed Machado's tower:
You can watch the full video here, but Barnes not only missed his spot -- the catcher was set up down and away -- by a plate's width, he missed high enough for the pitch to make contact with Machado's bat. Predictably, Barnes was tossed, because c'mon. That didn't stop manager John Farrell from arguing on his behalf, however:
Farrell said ball slipped away from Barnes, but kept repeating how dangerous it is to throw near the head. Was thankful it didn't hit him.
— Jason Mastrodonato (@JMastrodonato) April 23, 2017
Where Vazquez is set up doesn’t indicate Barnes was trying to go above his hands, as Farrell suggested pic.twitter.com/ipFOf5f3KH
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) April 23, 2017
John Farrell clearly had the best spin on any pitch thrown today
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) April 23, 2017
Pedroia, to his credit, seemed less charitable about the situation, per ESPN:
"I had nothing to do with that. That's not how you do that, man,'' Pedroia said afterward. "I'm sorry to him and his team. If you're going to protect guys, you do it the right away.''
He added: "It's definitely a mishandled situation. There was zero intention of him trying to hurt me (Friday night). He just made a bad slide. He did hurt me. It's baseball, man."
The Red Sox and Orioles will play again come Monday May 1. Let's hope both sides have moved on by then.
