No Excuses For Manny Machado

The Orioles lost in embarrassing fashion on Sundy (shocking), and as beautifully put by Camden Chat:

I can’t believe the final score wasn’t the most embarrassing part of that game.

— Camden Chat (@CamdenChat) June 8, 2014

Fine, let’s do this. I hate that I’m writing anything other than “Win column: put a Bird on it.” Instead, it’s a blog post about how disappointed I am with Manny Machado.  Ugh.

First things first: Everyone take a deep breath and avoid the knee-jerk reaction. Manny Machado isn’t suddenly a villain. Let’s not assume that this means that this is the player and person that he is – now and forever.

But this weekend, it didn’t look good. Not one bit. You can try to make all the excuses you want. “He’s only 21 – do you remember how you were at 21 years old?” Not working for me. I don’t care how you spin it. Manny Machado did not act like a player I want to root for during the Athletics series. I wasn’t on the field, and I have never played a game of professional baseball. And yet, I can say with complete authority that Manny Machado looked petulant and out of control. Let’s review the the timeline:

Event: Josh Donaldson tags Manny Machado between 2nd and 3rd

My Take: I didn’t see an issue with Josh Donaldson’s tag of Machado on Friday night. After what I thought was a clean baseball play, Manny came up fired up – throwing his helmet and getting in Donaldson’a face. It was a complete overreaction. If that had been the end of it, I would be more willing to give him a pass. Instead, things got silly.

Event: Manny Machado hits catcher Derek Norris in the head with his backswing.

My Take:I don’t even know how a person could hit a catcher on the backswing intentionally. The Athletics didn’t like the looks of it – or of Manny. Apparently, the A’s didn’t appreciate Machado’s response, which in their eyes, was not apologetic enough. I’m not buying it.

Event:

Fernando Abad throws at Machado with the first pitch in his at-bat in the 8th innning. On the following pitch, Machado throws his bat (which landed near the third base umpire). After order restored in the wake of the benches clearing, Abad and Machado were both ejected.

My Take:Bush league all around, but it looks worst on Manny. If he had simply aken a walk and come back composed for the rest of hte at-bat, Abad would have looked like the bad guy, and nothing more would have come of it. Instead, Machado risked the wellbeing of is teammates with the possibility of future retaliation, and in the bench-clearing non-event which followed. Manny made himself look like a premaddona whose talent is only matched by his ego. He made himself look like a guy who loses his composure at the sight of adversity – especially when paired with the tag from Friday night.

This cannot happen. This is the kind of me-first baseball that gets people hurt, and draws focus from winning ballgames. Manager Buck Showalter said in his presser that he usually doesn’t get involved in all this – that he lets his players police this kind of thing If that’s the case, the veterans need to step up. I thought Machado was better than this, and if he’s not, he needs to get there. In a hurry. When watching phenoms like Yasiel Puig and Bryce Harper act like head cases always made me thankful that the Orioles’ young star carried himself better than that. He let the fan base down today.

On Little League Day, no less. Though the team’s abysmal play likely drove thousands out of the park before the bottom of the 8th, it is likely that many kids watched the altercation in person – plus . Kids that look up to Manny Machado.

Yuck.

Like I said before, I don’t want to get too caught up labeling Machado as a bad guy from thise weekend’s altercations, but the microscope is going to be on him for a while. And if other teams are smart, they’re going to see if they can get under his skin. He showed this weekend that he can be rattled. And when rattled, he’s far from his best.