Andrew Stetka: Machado's reputation on the line after rough weekend

It seems the so-called unwritten rules of baseball have been tested throughout this season. We've seen brawls between the Pirates and Brewers, Red Sox and Rays. and a few different incidents now involving the Orioles - most notably when Bud Norris threw inside on Boston's David Ross. The latest stems from Manny Machado's actions on Friday night, which boiled over into yesterday and led to an ejection and a public shaming. All of a sudden, one of the game's most respected young stars has a reputation, and it's not a good one. Sometimes that's all it takes for a player to fall from grace. There are multiple accounts of a well-liked athlete doing something wrong and then losing the respect of his peers and fans.

I'm not going to claim that you should lose all your respect for Machado because that would be far too premature and irrational. Even I haven't gone to that extreme. There is, however, a fine line that the 21-year-old is now walking from this point forward. A lack of production to this point in the season aside, Machado isn't acting like the face of a franchise that he's been deemed as. In order for him to gain notoriety and reverence from those around the game, he'll have to shake off the events of this weekend.

Machado's actions Friday night were unnecessary and uncalled for. The tag placed on him by Athletics third baseman Josh Donaldson was a baseball play, nothing more. The overreaction could perhaps be attributed to Machado's sensitivity when it comes to his recent knee injury, but the end result made him look foolish. Every national baseball pundit said the same thing throughout the weekend, leading up to yesterday's episode. The fact that Wei-Yin Chen threw a few pitches inside to Donaldson and eventually hit him later in Friday's game made the whole situation even more deplorable. I don't for a second excuse him from blame in all of this. This is why baseball's unwritten rules have remained that way - because they shouldn't exist.

Sunday's scuffle was, of course, started by Oakland's Fernando Abad, who was, quite obviously, put up to the task of throwing at Machado in a blowout. As I said, I can't stand baseball's unwritten rules, but anyone who pays minimal attention to the game knew that retaliation would be coming Machado's way after Friday's circus. I would have taken offense to this if I was Machado, but his reaction was one that has already cost him dearly in the public eye.

By throwing a bat and claiming that it slipped, Machado is already drawing comparisons to Alex Rodriguez and Mike Piazza for different reasons - neither of which is good. The next best thing for Machado to do would be to issue an apology and graciously accept whatever suspension may (should) be coming his way from Major League Baseball. Perhaps he can use the time off to figure out why he's hitting just .235 with an on-base percentage below .300.

It's easy to say that he's still getting his feet under him following surgery, but after a little over a month's worth of games, it would be nice to see Machado start hitting the ball with authority like fans have grown accustomed to. Truthfully, when you put apologies and hurt feelings aside, that's what will really help his reputation the most. Attempting to make amends with the A's really wouldn't be a bad idea either, especially if no one wants to see more fireworks in Oakland when the Orioles play there from July 18-20.

Andrew Stetka blogs about the Orioles for Eutaw Street Report. Follow him on Twitter: @AStetka. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.