Machado's Intentional Bat Flip Frustration

Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado is one of the best young players in the game. At age 21, he does things not many players are able to do on both the offense and defense.  He had quite the weekend on the baseball diamond against the Oakland A's involving two different situations where Machado let his emotions get the best of him. Machado needs to learn how to reel in his emotional issues as he will be seen as a player opposing teams know they can get under his skin easy.

Friday's incident is not as severe as Sunday, but it still sparked everything for the weekend.In the third inning, Machado gets caught in a rundown and Oakland A's third baseman Josh Donaldson applied a sort of hard tag on him.  Machado didn't appreciate it and overreacted like I do when some girl doesn't talk to me on Tinder. He threw his helmet towards the direction of Donaldson sparking a fracas leading to the benches clearing out momentarily. Orioles pitchers seemed to defend Machado as Wei-Yin Chen threw at Donaldson later on in the game. It seemed like one of those moments that happen occasionally in baseball, but nothing more was thought of it.

Sunday is where things escalated to a full on feud and potential reputation-changing moment for Machado. Fernando Abad threw inside on Machado two consecutive times hoping he could break him, and that's exactly what happened as the young Orioles third baseman flung his bat towards Donaldson. Machado didn't use his words or his hands rather he threw a bat whom could have got several people hurt. It was a terrible decision by him, and there is no place for it in baseball. Odds are MLB will suspend him for five or more games to send a message to Machado is pretty high. He looked like a complete punk, but there are moments where we all have acted like punks at 21.

Where does this sudden anger stem from?  Possibly, the fact Machado is not having a good start in his second full season. We hear all the time about sophomore slumps, and it could ring true for the young Orioles player. In 34 games this season, he is hitting .235 on the season with only seven total extra bases with four home runs along with 19 hits and struck out 26 times already this season. Machado had a great 2013 campaign, and it appears the book has been figured out on him at least for the time being. He will likely be fine as many young players go through struggles like this one, but it is clear Machado's frustration at the plate carried over to what happened on the baseball diamond.

The bummer part of this is many people will now classify Machado for this incident. Obviously, he shouldn't have done it, but this doesn't make him a bad person. He did something stupid at a young age. I drank 15 shots of rum in 60 to 90 minutes at age 20. I should have probably been in the hospital that night, but I never did it again. Odds are Machado will never do something this again. Maybe that's a bad comparison, but at the same time, we do dumb things when we are young no matter if we are college kids or professional athletes. Machado will hopefully find a way to be a better player on the field and control his temper as much as possible.

Baltimore is in second-place in the American League East being 5.5 back from Toronto. If they want to make a serious run at returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2012, they will need Machado to be at his highest level.

Charlie.