Pedro Martinez knows exactly how he would have handled last weekend’s situation involving Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado.
Machado injured Dustin Pedroia with a late slide in which he spiked the Boston Red Sox second baseman in the leg. Matt Barnes threw a pitch near Machado’s head later in the series, earning the Red Sox reliever a four-game suspension, and Pedroia could be seen telling the Orioles star, “It’s not me.”
We’ll likely never know Barnes’ intent, although the optics suggest the pitch — whether it got away from him or not — might have had a purpose. But we do know how Martinez would have reacted to Machado spiking one of his teammates if he still was pitching for the Red Sox.
And let’s just say Machado’s body probably would have been sore the next day.
“I would react the same way except I would try to keep the ball lower. The ribs — the ribs down. Butt cheek. Legs. But ribs,” Martinez told the Boston Herald this week. “I aimed all the time to the rib cage — boom! And I was a sharpshooter, too. You rarely saw me right over the head. It would be the ribs.”
“As much as I love Machado, who’s one of my boys — I love him dearly — I would’ve (gone) and hit him square in the ribs or maybe in the butt cheek,” the former Red Sox ace added Friday on WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni and Fauria,” per WEEI.com. “I honestly think I have to protect my players.”
This isn’t all that surprising, as Martinez wasn’t afraid to attack hitters and pitch inside — way inside, if the situation called for it. Sometimes, you need to stand up for your teammates, which is why Martinez would have pelted Machado following the questionable slide into Pedroia, who’s undeniably Boston’s de facto captain now that David Ortiz is retired.
“I see baseball as a jungle,” Martinez told the Herald. “You kill to survive. (The Orioles) should have known, if you hurt one of my players … I’m glad I’m not pitching because I don’t think I would’ve missed.
“I would have hit (Machado) square in the ribs. And if I didn’t, I would try another one, too. That’s how it used to be.”
Did you expect anything less?
Thumbnail photo via Eric Bolte/USA TODAY Sports Images
