Baltimore Orioles superstar Manny Machado and Kansas City Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura exchanged words after Machado flew out to left field in the bottom of the third inning Tuesday night at Camden Yards.
Well, in the fifth inning, things went up a notch. Ventura drilled Machado in the back with a 99 mph fastball, and then all hell broke loose:
Bench-clearing brawl in Baltimore as Yordano Ventura plunks Manny Machado, chaos ensues. pic.twitter.com/yWGyVpPKUA
— Baseball Is Fun (@flippingbats) June 8, 2016
Manny Machado did not take kindly to this pitch. pic.twitter.com/kl5pRg9NGE
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) June 8, 2016
Yordano Ventura threw at Manny Machado, dropped his hat and glove and was ready to fight. Ridiculous: — Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) June 8, 2016
Yordano Ventura was 96-98 most of the night with his fastball. The single hardest pitch he threw was the one that hit Manny Machado: 99 mph. — Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 8, 2016
Machado and Ventura were of course ejected.
Given what happened earlier in the game, and given Ventura having a history of such incidents (example), this would sure seem to be intentional. And Machado most certainly thought so, obviously.
It would seem most people will defend Machado on this one, but it will be interesting to see what MLB decides in terms of suspensions. Machado has a 3.4 WAR at the moment according to Fangraphs, tied with some guy named Mike Trout for the best position-player WAR in baseball. So, if he’s forced to miss much time at all, that’s a huge loss for the Orioles.
This Machado-Ventura fight comes after Jose Bautista and Rougned Odor got into it during a Blue Jays-Rangers game less than a month ago in Texas.
