Red Sox: Handing out turkey awards for Thanksgiving

A difficult task is attempting to defend the indefensible when it centers around a player who is easily an all-time top ten favorite of mine.  And that is top-ten baseball and not just the Red Sox, but Dustin Pedroia certainly gets a turkey thanks to the great spiking and beanball incident during the season.

Manny Machado of the Orioles is certainly not on the Nobel Peace Prize short list and his questionable slide into second base resulted in a spiking of Pedroia. Pedroia said he didn’t feel it was intentional and apparently considered it part of the risk of being in the line of fire. A no big deal. MLB did not send Machado to the hothouse so that should have ended the issue. Matt Barnes thought otherwise.

Barnes instituted his version of baseball justice disguised as a high hard one designed to get Machado’s attention.  It most certainly did, but Pedroia could be seen tossing Barnes – who was immediately ejected – under the proverbial bus with signaling that Barnes was not following his (Pedroia’s) orders.

You simply must keep your mouth firmly closed in such situations.  Pedroia did not. Barnes said his toss was “unintentional,” but Pedroia had already gone public with you “Don’t do that” and his captured mouthing to Machado regarding the pitch.