Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette was a guest on "The Norris and Davis Show" this morning on 105.7 FM The Fan in Baltimore and talked about the events this weekend involving Manny Machado.
"Manny had a confrontation with (Josh) Donaldson and then we threw inside to Donaldson and Donaldson turned to their bench and I don't know what he said exactly but I think he asked for support from his pitching staff," Duquette said.
"And later on in the series, they threw at Manny not once, but twice. I thought our guys, Buck (Showalter) and Wayne Kirby did a good job of keeping Manny out of harm's way in terms of that fight escalating.
"I thought after they threw at him once, it was pretty clear to me they were going to throw at him again. I thought the umpire should have taken some action before they threw at Manny a second time. I don't think the second time was warranted frankly."
Duquette was then asked about Machado's reaction.
"Well, I'm not going to condone that action and I don't think there is a place for that," he said. "But when somebody is trying to take your livelihood by throwing a baseball at you, not once, but twice, I think that is a natural reaction to protect yourself.
"We didn't throw at anybody in that series. We threw inside on Donaldson because he reached out over the plate the first time up on Chen and hit the ball into the right-field bleachers. So we went inside to get him off the plate and after that we were able to get him out. We didn't go inside to hit him. I don't understand how these guys can get away at throwing at hitters. That's not right."
Duquette was asked if he though Machado will be suspended.
"I think that's a distinct possibility. We'll have to see where the league weighs in on this issue," he said. "Joe Torre does a nice job looking at both sides of the equation and I'm sure they'll do their due diligence and research on this incident and the series."
By accepting you will be accessing a service provided by a third-party external to https://www.masnsports.com/