Orioles’ Manny Machado suspended for five games and fined

The Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics had an interesting series recently. It included a couple of bench clearing moments, mostly surrounding Orioles third baseman Manny Machado.

In the most recent incident he flung his bat after being brushed back by a pitch. It seems like the bat was intended to fly towards the pitcher but instead flung towards third base.

Initially Machado claimed it was an accident, but has since apologized for his actions amongst alleged threats from the organization to demote him to Triple A.

“I definitely want to apologize to all my teammates, my coaching staff, the organization and to Oakland, and the fans also, the way I overreacted,” Machado said.

“It was a frustrating weekend, and I let my emotions get the best of me.”

Well Major League Baseball wasn’t taking it too lightly and opted to suspend Machado for five games and fine him an undisclosed amount.

Not everyone was accepting of his apology though.

“It’s step in the right direction, for sure,” closer Sean Doolittle told Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. “But actions speak louder than words. … Hopefully he’ll be able to look back on it as a young kid who got caught up in the heat of the moment, because it was pretty disgusting. It’s kind of hard to give him the benefit of the doubt when you watch it a couple of times.

“The real test will be when they come to our place (next month). This was just the beginning. An apology when a reporter is teeing you up questions? You’re not totally forgiven. People aren’t going to forget it.”

[UPDATE:] Machado plans to appeal