Manny Machado played the role of hero Wednesday night when he blasted a two-run homer in the seventh inning to give the Baltimore Orioles a 4-3 lead – one they would not relinquish – over the Washington Nationals.
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“For me, I thought my fastball was my best pitch”, Scherzer said. However it’s how it happened that was a problem.
“Had him two strikes, two outs, worked through that inning after the leadoff double and left one out, over”, Williams said. After Scherzer retired the next two batters, Machado hit his homer two innings after he was irate after he struck out looking when he was not granted time by Ripperger.
The Nationals scored in the bottom first when Escobar had an RBI single to drive in second baseman Anthony Rendon, who led off with a double against Tillman. At that point it appeared that it could be a matter of recording outs the rest of the way for Washington.
J.J. Hardy led off the seventh with a double against Scherzer (12-12), but after Clint Robinson robbed Gerardo Parra with a diving stop at first, the Washington starter had a chance to get out of it. And the Orioles’ pen held on well, with Mychal Givens pitching two solid innings and Darren O’Day getting the save in the ninth.
It was a big home run that ended up winning the game for the Orioles. “And I think Machado should have went and [gone after] Papelbon, because he did try to throw at him the first pitch”. That seemed to give Machado pause, but the second pitch was well out of the zone but away from Machado. Machado was then hit by a pitch in the ninth by Jonathan Papelbon, who was ejected. Benches cleared but there was no incidents and Felipe Rivero came in to get the final out in the top of the ninth. In general, I’m not in the business of interpreting intent.
Papelbon didn’t exactly deny it being an intentional beanball. Apparently Papelbon was the only person in the park who didn’t think so, as he and manager Matt Williams vehemently protested his ejection. If you do something good and cool and productive at your job, I hope you’re pretty pleased about it yourself. However it should never be done in the vicinty of the head – you bury the pitch in the guy’s back or thigh. He throws that breaking ball, gets him leaning out over [the plate], and then he comes back high and tight again, and hits him? He is always coy about that sort of thing, but I’m going to guess that there will be no renewal of hostilities today. If people are trying to hit me, it’s part of the game.
“That’s where I usually get a lot of swings and misses”. If you can’t take the heat, just stay out of the kitchen and just go on from it. You don’t throw at somebody’s head. Machado called it, “coward stuff”.
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Again, the act of hitting someone isn’t the part that’s cowardly, it’s the location. He is coming off his worst game of the year after giving up six runs and eight hits to the Miami Marlins. And unsafe. And if you want to go all-in with a guy like Jonathan Papelbon when it comes to judgment, be my guest.
