Bad blood exists between Red Sox, Machado

Manny Machado of the Los Angeles Dodgers answers questions Monday ahead of tonight’s Game 1 of the World Series in Boston, where Machado is especially despised for an incident involving Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia in April 2017.
Manny Machado of the Los Angeles Dodgers answers questions Monday ahead of tonight’s Game 1 of the World Series in Boston, where Machado is especially despised for an incident involving Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia in April 2017.

BOSTON -- Most players are questioned ahead of their World Series debuts. Manny Machado was cross-examined.

October's villain is especially despised at Fenway Park for planting his spikes into Dustin Pedroia in April 2017. The Boston second baseman hasn't been the same.

"That's old history," Machado said Monday, deflector shields raised.

Wearing a blue Los Angeles Dodgers World Series hoodie and gray pants, arms crossed, he sat between teammates Yasiel Puig and Ross Stripling, surrounded by a scrum of inquirers in the Pavilion Room on the 106-year-old ballpark's fourth level.

With hard slides at second base against Milwaukee and a foot planted on the heel of Brewers' first baseman Jesus Aguilar, Machado acquired notoriety far exceeding the attention he gained as a four-time All-Star infielder with Baltimore. He even earned condemnation from Pete Rose, whose own rambunctious play included running over Ray Fosse in an All-Star Game.

"I don't think going in hard is the same as dragging your left foot, to kicking the guy's foot off the bag," Rose said in a telephone interview. "I don't know Manny Machado, so I don't know if he's a dirty player or if he's not. But I just thought when he hit the first baseman's foot it was kind of unnecessary."

A few weeks from becoming a free agent at the age of 26, Machado's actions could signal buyer beware to suitors.

When he took out Pedroia during a slide at Baltimore on April 21 last year, Machado spiked his surgically repaired left knee and calf. Pedroia missed the next three games and has been limited to 92 games since.

"I know how I hurt my knee, and I know what happened. That's it. We all know," Pedroia said.

Machado didn't seem to mind Pedroia's insinuation.

"We're not friends," he said.

Because of what happened?

"That's a good one, man. That's a good one. That's a really good one," he said, chuckling.

Anger festered. Two days after the slide, Red Sox reliever Matt Barnes threw a fastball behind Machado's head and was suspended for four games.

When the teams met May 2, 2017, Chris Sale threw a pitch behind Machado's legs, and Machado criticized the Red Sox during a postgame interview that included 22 profanities in a 75-second span. He called Boston's behavior "coward" stuff and said: "I've lost my respect for that organization, for that coaching staff, for everyone over there."

"We have bigger things to worry about now on both sides," Sale said ahead of his start in tonight's opener. "We're not worried about any individual player."

Machado, as the saying goes, responded with his bat. He homered over the Green Monster and out of Fenway Park later in the series, then took a 29.8-second stroll around the bases. Machado's eight home runs at Fenway are tied for his most at an opposing ballpark.

Machado drew renewed scrutiny in the NL Championship Series. He failed to run hard on a grounder in Game 2, then made a pair of hard slides into Milwaukee's Orlando Arcia in Game 3 while the shortstop was attempting to turn double plays. While Arcia made a wild throw on the second after Machado clipped a knee with a hand, umpires called a double play after a video review.

During an interview broadcast on FS1 before Game 4, Machado admitted: "I'm not the type of player that's going to be Johnny Hustle and run down the line and slide to first base. That's just not my personality. That's not my cup of tea. That's not who I am."

In the 10th inning of that night's game, he kicked Aguilar on the back of the leg while running out a groundout. He was fined $10,000 by the commissioner's office, according to a person familiar with the discipline.

"He's a player that has a history of those types of incidents," Milwaukee star Christian Yelich said. "One time is an accident. Repeated over and over and over again, you're just a dirty player. It's a dirty play by a dirty player."

Sports on 10/23/2018

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