There is (unsurprisingly) no love lost in a playoff series between the Dodgers and Padres.
Playoff baseball is here, and with it comes a new installment of the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Diego Padres rivalry. The NL West rivals are facing off in an NLDS series that is currently tied at one game apiece after San Diego stomped Los Angeles, 10-2, on Sunday night. You will not be shocked to learn that things got a tad heated between the teams in Game 2, specifically Dodgers pitcher Jack Flaherty and Padres third baseman Manny Machado.
After Flaherty struck out Machado in the sixth inning, the Dodgers pitcher told Machado to … well, you don’t have to be an expert lip-reader to decipher this one.
Machado was the last batter that Flaherty faced, but even with the Dodgers starter out of the game, the pair continued to chat it up between innings, with Machado appearing to tell Flaherty “I’ll meet you outside. I’ll meet you.” The two did not meet outside, but this does give this series a little more juice (not that it needed any more juice.)
Manny Machado and Jack Flaherty downplay headed conversations in post-game interviews
After the game, Machado was mostly nonchalant about his interactions with Flaherty, saying, “He made good pitches. I missed that first one, he dotted another slider, he won the battle, it’s plain and simple. I give credit where credit’s due,” to FOX Sports, also saying, “It’s a competition, right? He wants to win, I want to win, I’m doing it for my team, he’s doing it for his organization, and it’s a competition that once you put on that uniform and you step in between those lines, it’s a battle man, it’s a lot of emotions going through the game.”
Flaherty, meanwhile, said that cameras “caught the tail end, everybody caught just me and him going at it. Manny’s a great player, you know, I understand it’s the postseason, everybody is fired up, maybe upset, like, frustrated about pitching to Tatis,” in reference to when he hit Fernando Tatis Jr. two batters prior to Machado’s at-bat.
Tatis, meanwhile, didn’t have any heated conversations with Dodgers players, but he did very graciously blow a kiss goodbye to Dodgers fans once the Padres had blown the game open in the eighth inning.
As this series shifts to San Diego tied at one, the tension between the teams is quickly bubbling up, and it would be silly to assume that Flaherty and Machado’s interaction is the last time things get chippy between the longtime rivals.
