in an unusual direction? I've been to many, many baseball games. That ball is lightly tossed into the back end of the dugout every single time.

The fact is he threw it in the direction of Roberts and it was presumably done with some level of frustration. The umpire walking over to him immediately afterwards might be a pretty good clue this wasn't his normal routine as he might suggest.

The fact it's Manny Machado who I personally watched yell from the top of the dugout the entire half inning before, both before and after his strikeout I might add, only adds credence to the claim of Roberts, who is generally very quick to disregard such shenanigans.

Look I get it. I expect the friar faithful to circle the wagons around the guy. I did it when he was spiking guys as a Dodger.

But at the end of the day he's a tremendous player but just not a very good person. Maybe Flaherty deserves the same criticism, but to my knowledge this is the first time Flaherty has been involved in controversy.

Machado has a slightly longer rap sheet.

It's all good though. I don't care. Nobody was harmed. I just find it funny when fans of a player try to paint them as anything less than the thug they've proven to be.

I'm sure I defended Nick Emery when he was doing his thing. And I'm sure there have been others - definitely Puig.

It's just what we do as fans. But there's just nobody outside Padre and/or Dodger hater nation who believes Machado is some type of innocent bystander in what transpired the other night.