Buck Showalter is not above taking little jabs at his opponents. But on Friday, his opponent jabbed back.
The Washington Nationals had just beaten the Baltimore Orioles 6-1 on Thursday night in a makeup game from a May 11 rainout. But that rainout was sprinkled with controversy — the rain in the forecast never actually showed up, meaning the contest at Nationals Park was postponed for essentially no reason.
The pushback affected the Orioles more than the Nationals; star players Adam Jones and Manny Machado both were scratched from Thursday’s game due to injury, and Baltimore had to start unheralded right-hander Alec Asher instead of ace Dylan Bundy. So, Showalter complained in his own sarcastic way.
“Lots of byproducts of the cancellation,” the Orioles manager said before Thursday’s game, via The Washington Post, before remarking on the weather, “I think it’s marginally better tonight.”
Washington general manager Mike Rizzo caught wind of Showalter’s snarky remarks Friday and vehemently defended the original postponement.
“It rained all day that day, and the forecast said it would rain until 9:30 or 10,” Rizzo said, via the Post. “I sat in Buck’s office at 6:30, and we talked about it for 20 minutes. He was 100 percent on-board. He didn’t say anything about not canceling the game.”
Rizzo wasn’t done, though, lighting into Showalter for his hollow complaint.
“Their GM (Dan Duquette) was nowhere to be found for three, four hours,” Rizzo added. “We wanted to play the next (mutual off) day. They refused to play then, so the next (mutual) day was (Thursday).
“They drove 32 miles to get there. We flew 3,000 (expletive) miles, and we beat their (behinds). So, quit your whining. Quit whining.”
Point taken.
Unfortunately, the Metro area rivals won’t play each other again this season unless they meet in the World Series. But there’s clearly some bad blood here.
Thumbnail photo via Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports Images
