The Boston Red Sox didn’t exactly look like they were on the same page Sunday when Matt Barnes threw a pitch near Manny Machado’s head, setting off an interesting exchange in which Dustin Pedroia could be seen telling the Baltimore Orioles star “it’s not me.”
But Pedroia, who had been spiked by Machado earlier in the teams’ weekend series (giving reason to believe Barnes’ pitch had a purpose), did his best Tuesday to squash the idea there’s any sort of rift in the Red Sox’s clubhouse stemming from the incident.
“We all talked about that. We’re going to keep that in house,” Pedroia told reporters at Fenway Park, where Tuesday night’s game between the Red Sox and New York Yankees was canceled following an off-day for Boston. “We feel good about each other. We all have each other’s backs. Everybody knows how everybody feels about each other. We’re pretty excited about the group we have.”
Barnes, who was suspended four games for his involvement in Sunday’s extracurriculars, also downplayed there being any internal issues, telling reporters Tuesday that “everybody in this clubhouse has one another’s back,” according to ESPN.com.
Pedroia suggesting Sunday that the Machado affair was “definitely a mishandled situation” certainly raised some eyebrows, though. It came off like the Red Sox second baseman was going against the grain and throwing his teammates under the bus, even if that wasn’t his intent.
“Guys that should know, know how we feel about each other and things like that,” Pedroia told reporters Tuesday, per ESPN.com. “It’s unfortunate that the outside has an opinion, but they’re going to have an opinion about everything. We all know how we feel. We’re moving on.”
The Red Sox and Orioles meet again in a four-game series starting next Monday at Fenway Park.
Thumbnail photo via Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports Images
