DENVER -- Jubilation one night, frustration the next. The good vibes from the Padres’ miracle ninth-inning comeback Friday lasted all the way until the fifth inning on Saturday. Then Manny Machado got ejected. An inning later, manager Andy Green and lefty Matt Strahm got themselves tossed. In the process, the
DENVER -- Jubilation one night, frustration the next.
The good vibes from the Padres’ miracle ninth-inning comeback Friday lasted all the way until the fifth inning on Saturday.
Then
San Diego dropped a 14-8 slugfest at Coors Field on Saturday night, a game that was overshadowed by a contentious set of interactions with home-plate ump Bill Welke -- and not for the first time this year.
Trailing 7-4 in the fifth inning, Machado was tossed for arguing balls and strikes after a borderline 2-2 fastball from German Marquez on the outside corner.
“This is just my personal opinion, but I just felt like our pitchers were making some of those pitches and weren't getting calls on it,” Machado said. “... I just felt like it was unfair and it changed the momentum of the game and the momentum of the at-bat. I just had to let him know what it was.”
The moment Welke signaled for the ejection, Machado went off. He threw his helmet and yelled at Welke for several moments before chucking his bat toward the backstop. Clearly, strike three was just the tipping point.
Amateur lip-reading made it clear Machado's message was something along the lines of "that's been happening all game," with a few expletives mixed in. Green came out to argue, as well, and Machado retreated to the dugout, where he had more choice words from the top step.
“It's just an in-game-moment thing,” Machado said. “We've been getting some calls that were off the plate a little bit and deserve a better strike zone.”
An inning later, Green got himself run. So did Strahm, in a seemingly odd set of circumstances.
In the aftermath of Machado’s ejection, the Padres had been chirping at Welke for the better part of the next two innings. But when Welke turned toward the dugout in the bottom of the sixth, Strahm was quick to say that wasn’t the case.
“[I was] cheering on my teammate, Phil Maton,” Strahm said. “I think the confusion of ‘Phil’ and ‘Bill’ was what happened there. All it was was, ‘Come on, Phil.’”
Strahm hadn’t been ejected yet when Green emerged for a not-so-civil chat with Welke. At one point, Green appeared to be headed back to his dugout. But he offered a few extra words, and that’s when Welke tossed him. Green needed to be restrained by bench coach Rod Barajas.
It’s the second time this season Green has been tossed, both by Welke. The Padres skipper was also run from an April 2 contest against Arizona, in which Machado was ruled out on a controversial interference call.
Both Machado and Green said there was no lingering testiness from that incident. They merely disagreed with Welke’s strike zone on Saturday -- then, in Green’s case, with his understanding of the situation in the Padres’ dugout.
“Bill was mistaken on who was yelling at who from the dugout,” Green said. “... It all ensued from there.”
For Machado, it was his fifth career ejection and his first as a Padre. Even with the fifth-inning strikeout, he is 9-for-15 with three homers this weekend. After a somewhat slow start offensively, he appears to be heating up.
The Padres, on the other hand, have hit a rut. They’ve lost six of seven, with their only victory coming on the strength of Friday’s six-run ninth inning.
“He needs to get over it if it is,” Green said. “You can’t walk into a stadium and expect bad things to happen, then get good results. It’s unacceptable to have that mentality, so if that’s in his head, yeah, he needs to own that and move past that.”
Ian Desmond put the Rockies ahead 11-4 with a grand slam in the bottom half of the fifth. The Padres clawed back with four runs over the next two innings, to no avail.
“We've got a lot of guys with a lot of fight trying to win a baseball game,” Green said. “But we didn't pitch well today. There's no other way around it.”
Machado, watching from the visiting clubhouse, was particularly enthused by that “fight.”
“That just tells you everything about the ballclub,” he said. “... We're going to continue to compete. No matter what happens, we're going to be a tough threat."
AJ Cassavell covers the Padres for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @ajcassavell.
https://www.mlb.com/news/manny-machado-ejected-arguing-strike-call
2019-06-16 06:55:37Z
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