Game 2 of the National League Division Series proved to be a blowout as the Los Angeles Dodgers lost 10-2 against the San Diego Padres on a day where emotions and tempers were at a high.
In the sixth inning with the score still reasonable at 3-1, Jack Flaherty hit Fernando Tatís Jr. with a pitch to lead off the frame.
Manny Machado took offense at that, believing it was intentional, and while he was standing near the dugout, he began yelling at Flaherty.
“You tried to hit our best hitter, right? Get him out,” Machado explained after the game. “You can’t get him out, don’t hit him. They’ve got the best player in the game, right? Ohtani. We don’t go out there and try to hit Ohtani. We try to get him out. Don’t go out there and try to hit my guy.”
Flaherty shared from his view that wasn’t intentional in an 0-1 count with a 92 mph sinker, but that was still the spark that lit the fire.
“Look, I missed in the first inning and I threw the ball over the middle,” Flaherty began, referring to the home run he allowed to Tatis on a missed location. “I wasn’t going to miss over the plate again. I have no reason to hit a guy there to start off the sixth, even as good as he’s been swinging the bat.
“We’re down in the game, and I tried to go in for effect, and he didn’t get out of the way so it hit him. I didn’t try to go and hit him to lead off an inning or anything like that. That doesn’t really make any sense. I didn’t go up near his head, nothing. Just tried to push a guy off the plate and he didn’t get out of the way.
“Sometimes it happens and they’re upset about it. That’s part of it.”
With two runners on, Flaherty ended up striking Machado to end his night. After the punch out, the broadcast caught Flaherty telling Machado to go “sit the [expletive] down, [expletive].”
“I was fired up after getting Manny out in a big spot in the playoffs,” Flaherty said. ‘That’s what happens. I was fired up.”
When heading back to the field after the inning, Machado had some words for Flaherty as well and the two began yelling at each other. However, that was not due to the words after the strikeout.
“I didn’t even see it until my dugout started screaming back at him. He won it. He made his pitches. I swung at a ball four. He got me twice today. I tip my cap when credit is due.
“I kept walking, he made his pitch, I kept going and then I get to the end of the dugout and I see my team starts barking, so that was when I figured he was probably saying something. I didn’t really know what was going on.”
The second argument instead stemmed from Machado throwing a baseball toward the Dodgers dugout.
“And then he did some [expletive] in between innings, tries to throw the ball at our dugout and everybody kind of catches the tail end of it, which is me and him going at it,” Flaherty said. “I was sitting there for my team. I wasn’t there to go at him, but he threw a ball at our dugout.
“The umpires went over immediately. I don’t know what their conversation was, but our dugout was fired up because there’s no reason for that. Everybody caught the tail end of it. Everybody caught me and him going at it.
“Manny is a great player. I understand it’s the postseason and everybody is fired up. He got upset or frustrated about pitching to Tatis, but like I said, you’ve got to be able to pitch him in. I missed in the first inning and I wasn’t going to miss over the plate again.
“There was a lot that happened there, but I hope the fans stay out of it. We’ve just got to play better. Sometimes emotions run high in this game and you just go out, we’ve got to regroup and go get the next one.”
Manny Machado responds to Jack Flaherty
While Flaherty took exception to a baseball be sent toward the Dodgers’ dugout, Machado declined any ill intent behind it.
“I throw balls all the time into dugouts,” Machado began. “Both dugouts. They have bat boys, you throw the ball back in there.”
Although the shouting mach continued, Machado didn’t make much of it other than the emotion of postseason baseball coming out.
“Just going back and forth,” he said. “Competition, things that happen between the lines, people going back and forth. He’s competing for his ballclub and I’m trying to get a big hit for my team. This is the beauty of postseason baseball.”
Machado added: “Honestly, you can’t really hear with this crowd, so I don’t really know what was being said. Bunch of gibberish going back and forth. It was a long inning for us after that with balls being thrown, kind of icing our pitcher there a little bit. (Yu) Darvish coming out and having that zero for us was huge as well.
“It’s a beautiful thing to be playing postseason baseball.”
Jack Flaherty critical of Dodgers fans
The next flair of tempers and emotions in the game took place in the seventh inning when Dodgers fans began throwing items onto the field in the direction of Jurickson Profar and Tatís. That caused a delay in the game of roughly 10 minutes and created extra anger from Profar, who had a baseball thrown toward him.
“Well, first, is that fans should never get involved. There’s no reason ever to throw anything at players,” Flaherty said. “No matter what’s going on, there’s no reason to get involved with it. Stay out of it.
“Whatever went on over there, they have a reason to be upset about it. We should never feel like we’re going to get anything thrown at us on either side. Fans should never be involved.”
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