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Somebody forgot to tell wrestling heel-cum-baseball closer Jonathan Papelbon that the Nationals’ season is hanging by a thread: His vigilante justice against Orioles star Manny Machado for maybe pimping a home run put his own team’s best player in danger — and Bryce Harper isn’t happy about it.
“I mean, Manny freaking hit a homer,” Harper said after the Nationals’ 4-3 loss Wednesday night in Washington. “Walked it off and somebody drilled him. I mean, it’s pretty tired. It’s one of those situations where it happens and, I don’t know, I’ll probably get drilled tomorrow.”
Machado’s go-ahead two-run homer off Max Scherzer in the seventh set up Papelbon’s ejection-worthy chin music in the ninth. Papelbon’s first pitch to Machado was up and in. Then his third pitch was a fastball that caught the Orioles third baseman on his upper arm.
The two tries left no doubt in the Orioles dugout that the plunking was intentional, and Machado didn’t hold back in sharing his opinion of Papelbon’s actions.
“When you throw at somebody’s head on purpose first pitch, straight out the get-go, then you throw a curveball, then you throw again at the head, that’s just bulls–t,” Machado said, via the Baltimore Sun. “You know it’s coward stuff. It’s just coward.
“[Someone] with more than 10 years in the game and he’s going to go out there and throw at somebody’s head,” Machado also said. “It’s something that’s uncalled for. It’s bulls–t.”
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Orioles manager Buck Showalter quipped of Papelbon: “He kind of reminds me of the wrestlers who pull somebody’s hair and then they throw their hands up.”
Papelbon did little to dispel that characterization with a not-quite alibi following the game.
“They just said they deemed it intentional, and they didn’t give me any reason,” Papelbon said. “I don’t know if they have to give me any reason or not, but perception is reality. If Manny thinks I hit him, then that’s what he thinks. I’m not going to sit here and go back forth whether I did or whether I didn’t, because it doesn’t matter. If he thinks I did, that’s what he thinks.”
The Nationals, with Harper on red alert, enter Thursday’s late-afternoon series finale trailing the NL East-leading Mets by 6½ games after failing to make up ground amid Papelbon’s tough-guy schtick.
With AP