Orioles-Red Sox Rivalry Is About To Get a Lot More Interesting

You might want to start gearing up those "kids, when I was your age" stories when it’s 2050 and MLB has expanded to 40 teams, an era where everyone’s friendly with one another and thus rivalries do not exist.

Point is, forget about Red Sox-Yankees, forget about Cubs-Cardinals, forget about Rangers-Blue Jays, just put all of those to the side right now.

The Orioles-Red Sox rivalry has just jumped to personal and societal issues. Players are getting hit left and right. Racism has become a factor. This is just plain ugly.

But before we get to the good stuff, we got to start by discussing what led to this misfortunate rivalry.

The Exposition (April 21st, 2017: The Slide)

It was the bottom of the 8th, Joe Kelly against Mark Trumbo. Trumbo grounded an easy double play ball to short, 6-4-3. Likely tailor made.

Except Manny Machado slid into second a bit late, and in the process Dustin Pedroia was spiked in the leg. This would be a moot point anytime before Chase Utley went full J.J. Watt on Ruben Tejada’s knee.

Quick notes though: I’m going to let you look at this slide, and you tell me if there’s anything “bush league” about it.

No, right?

First of all, if Machado really did intend to hurt Pedroia, why did he immediately try to break the impact of the fall?

Second, was the slide late? Yes. There is no arguing that one. Was it a slide out of malice? No. The slide was a late second decision, in which there are many of those in the sport of baseball, and Pedroia had no time to react.

If that was Aaron Judge sliding into second, best case scenario for Pedroia is having reconstructive surgery on nearly every part of his body.

Whatever the case is for the slide, it all led up to…

The Rising Action

In the bottom of the sixth two days later, Red Sox up 6-0, Eduardo Rodriguez pitched inside to Manny Machado. Way inside. You think, “alright, everything’s good. Maybe it just slipped” Rodriguez does it thrice before Machado walked on four pitches.

Don’t sit there and tell me that’s not intentional from Rodriguez.

Now, you knew that was coming at some point. The baseball unwritten rules say “you hurt our guy, you’re gonna pay.” Eventually, someone was going to throw at Machado, intentional or not.

Great news for Rodriguez? He didn’t actually hit Machado. And considering the last person to throw at Machado got the Nolan Ryan treatment, he should be glad he didn’t.

But again, those were expected. You know what wasn’t expected?

“But ump, it slipped out of my hand, it’s not my fault!” Said Matt Barnes, presumably.

What Matt Barnes actually said after the game? “I would never, ever intentionally throw at somebody’s head…I’m sorry that it kind of ended up that high, and fortunately it did not hit him.”

As SB Nation’s Grant Brisbee puts it:

“That is how Manny Machado becomes a Wikipedia page in 2079 that a young baseball nerd stumbles upon instead of a Hall of Famer he already knew about. Think of all the ways that could have gone wrong. Manny Machado, unable to deal with the dizziness and constant ringing in his ears, will miss the remainder of the season. Manny Machado, who underwent surgery to relieve swelling in his brain, is still in critical condition. Manny Machado, after struggling for years to return from his injuries, retired today at the age of 26. And you know that doesn’t even include the worst-case scenario.”

Everyone knows that when you want retaliation, you go for the knees. No matter what, you NEVER throw at a guy’s head. Just because your player got a little boo-boo from something completely unintentional does not mean that you endanger the career, much less life, of another human being.

Complete bush league. Then again, I’m not surprised given the fact that his name is Matt Barnes:

While the umps are trying to resolve this mess, you can see Pedroia trying to reason with Machado from the Red Sox dugout, saying “It’s not me” towards Machado. So that was the good news. He even offered an apology via text to Machado. Of course, you have those people that believe that Pedroia threw Barnes under the bus. Either way, Barnes was the one who executed the pitch.

Whatever the case may be, Machado got his revenge with an RBI double off Joe Kelly.

So you think that it’s over now? Machado makes a mistake, Red Sox retaliate, this thing’s over. Yeah, about that…

The Climax (for 2017, at least)

The Orioles May started off with a four game series against the Red Sox. The first game went without much incident as you would expect on the field. The only questionable action on the field was when Dylan Bundy hit Mookie Betts in the bottom of the sixth on a 2-1 count.

Apparently not, because after the game, Adam Jones spoke to Bob Nightingale and said that he had peanuts thrown at him and was called the worst thing to be called:

"A disrespectful fan threw a bag of peanuts at me,'' Jones said, "I was called the N-word a handful of times tonight. Thanks. Pretty awesome.''

It’s unknown if this is a Red Sox fan pissed about Machado injuring Pedroia or him just being a racist. Either way, it’s not cool.

It was reported after the game that 34 fans were ejected and banned—including another player who used improper language towards a player—during Monday’s game.

To make matters worse, Curt Shilling, the guy notorious for being fired off ESPN for his questionable conservative views on society, tried to say that Adam Jones was LYING about the whole thing.

“If he wants to maintain the lie he made here, that’s fine. No one denies racism exists, but when people like him lie about an incident and others just take him at his word, it perpetuates a mythical level of racism. And for some reason, it appears blacks believe only blacks can talk about racism and only whites can be racists. I promise you if some scumbag yelled the N-word at Adam Jones in Fenway, it would have been on Twitter, Facebook and every other social media site asap, like every other ‘incident.’ Not to mention the liberal Boston media would have broken its neck to identify the racist. But just taking him at his word means there are a bunch of white cowards and racists living here, because no one stood up to the guy. Adam has an agenda and one needs to only look at his past commentary on race and racism to see it. But see, when you question fake hate crimes in this day and age it somehow makes you a racist. If you use this use every word or none at all.” - Curt Shilling, from NBCSports.com

This is not the first time that a racial incident has happened in a ballpark that has been reported. Dexter Fowler reported that Cubs fans were using racial slurs at him in his return to Wrigley Field after signing a 5-year deal with the Cardinals. Conversly, Jason Hayward said that he heard the n-word numerous times in his return to Busch Stadium after signing a mega deal with the Cubs.

Add that to the fact that CC Sabathia, David Price, Barry Bonds, and Jackie Bradley Jr. have backed up Adam Jones’ statements, stating they have been racially mistreated at Fenway, and you have Curt Shilling’s lying accusation thrown out the window in a nutshell.

Mookie Betts would send out a heartfelt tweet later that day, saying that “I’m black too” and asked fans to “literally stand up” for Jones and “say no to racism. We as @RedSox and @MLB fans are better than this.”

The racism in the series doesn’t stop there. After a Kenyan woman sang the national anthem before Game 2 of the series, a fan was ejected from the game for yelling racial slurs at her.

And as if the drama didn’t stop there, in Machado’s very first at bat, Chris Sale threw at Machado’s legs.

No love lost when it comes to Boston. And while Machado would get his revenge in the top of the sixth with a home run against Sale, he made sure his feelings were announced after the game:

Chris Sale did not make things any better:

Any chance of the Red Sox signing Manny Machado in the 2019 free agency just went out the window.

After MLB warned both teams about fighting before Game 3, Kevin Gausman threw a 78-mph curveball and hit Xander Bogarts. He was immediately ejected by home plate umpire Sam Holbrook, despite Buck Showalter’s pleas and Kevin Gausman yelling “curveball” over and over again.

You be the judge on whether this is intentional or not.

Finally, to end the drama, Manny Machado would hit a three run homer off Kyle Kendricks, and took his time to round the bases. He did the same after hitting the homer off Sale.

The Orioles and Red Sox would split that series, but the series left a whole lot of drama at the plate.

The Falling Action

Nobody has said much about Machado since the two incidents. Adam Jones has penned an essay for The Player’s Tribune about the racism at Fenway, citing this is “about his 3-year old son”.

You already know there is no lost love between the two teams though. Things like bad slides, racism, 90-mph fastballs to the head, and slow trots around the bases are not things that will go away easily.

The Red Sox and O’s face each other six more times, not including probable postseason matchups, with their next meeting set for August 25th at Camden Yards. It will be interesting to see how this situation goes along during the rest of the season, despite the quiet notion in their last matchup.

All we know is…it’s not going away anytime soon.

#orioles #redsox #mlb #baseball #baltimore #boston #mannymachado