There's no California love between Jack Flaherty and Manny Machado.
The Dodgers' starting pitcher and the Padres' star third baseman engaged in a verbal war twice Sunday night in Game 2, which San Diego won 10-2 to tie the National League at 1-all.
After Flaherty struck out Machado in the top of the sixth inning, he told Machado to “shut up,” and the two exchanged jaws in the bottom of the inning.
“It’s a competition, going back and forth, right?” machado said. “Things happen between the lines and people just come and go. He's competing for a baseball club and I'm trying to get a big hit for the team. That's the beauty of postseason baseball. Right?”
Machado and Flaherty have offered different stories about why the two got into an argument late in Sunday's game, with Machado saying Flaherty was the one who punched Padres outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. earlier in the inning. Insinuating, Flaherty claimed Machado threw the ball over the line. Dodgers dugout.
It all unfolded in the sixth inning, with the Padres leading 3-1, after Flaherty struck out Tatis, who was 2-for-2 with a home run and a double, to start.
Machado believes Flaherty intentionally hit Tatis, who is 5-for-8 with two home runs in this series.
“If you're going to hit our best hitter, get him out. You can't get him out, you can't hit him, right?” Machado said. “They got the best player in the game, right? (Shohi) Ohtani. We're not actively trying to attack Ohtani. We're trying to get him, right? Don’t go out there and try to hit my guy.”
He added, “Do you want to hit (Tatis) with a sinker after you hit a bomb and a double?” I'll leave that to you to decide. ”
Flaherty countered that giving Tatis a two-point lead in a playoff game was not a wise move.
“I missed it in the first inning and threw the ball over the middle. I wasn't going to miss the plate anymore. But there's no reason to hit the No. 6 starting pitcher. “I'm trying to be effective, and he just got out of the way,” said Flaherty, who gave up four runs in 5 1/3 innings. “We didn't try to hit him, we didn't try to lead off the inning, we didn't do anything like that. It didn't really make sense. We didn't go near his head, we didn't do anything, we just pushed guys off the plate. I was just trying to get out of the way. Sometimes things like that happen and they get upset about it.”
Flaherty then allowed a single to Jurickson Profar and brought in two men for Machado, who won the battle by striking out a 3-for-2 fastball from the bat.
The right-hander then pointed towards the dugout and instructed Machado to sit down.
Ironically, Machado didn't really mind being called “Mother Carr.”
“He made some good pitches, made some quality pitches, caught me and kept me going,” Machado said. “He won that competition, right? He made the pitch. He couldn't perform in that situation.”
Then, at the top of the inning, the story takes a strange turn when Flaherty and Machado start biting each other on the jaw, presumably over a ball thrown into the dugout.
Flaherty claims Machado acted erratically.
“He made some strikes during the inning and threw the ball into the dugout and everyone caught the tail end of the ball. It was me and him. I was sitting there for the team and I didn't mean to go at him, but he was throwing the ball toward the dugout, and the umpire immediately went and told him — I don't know what the conversation was, but our dugout was I'm excited because there's no reason for that,” Flaherty said. “Everyone caught the tail end of it, like me and him going for it. Manny's a great player. It's the postseason, everyone's fired up. Frustrated and upset about pitching to Tatis. It's going to happen, like I said, you had to be able to pitch him, and I missed the first inning.''
But Machado said he had done nothing wrong and did not know what they were discussing.
“I always throw the ball to the dugout, both dugouts,” Machado said. “They have a bat boy, so he throws the ball back there.”
He added: “Honestly, I'm hard of hearing with this crowd, so I can't really make out what they're saying. There's a lot of gibberish going around.”
