For Machado, the streak's over but the goal is still the same
The swing he took at Kansas City Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura put an end to what was the game's longest such streak. Machado went from being baseball's new iron man to channeling Iron Mike going on an unwelcome four-game, five-day vacation.
Let's not get carried away. He was never going to make Cal Ripken Jr. stay up at night worrying about his place in baseball history. Machado is simply too good to sit down, and he had something to prove to himself by playing every game last year after suffering through a pair of serious knee injuries.
Manager Buck Showalter insisted during spring training that he wouldn't let Machado's streak — which ended at 229 games last Sunday — take on a life of its own. He promised that Machado would get some days off this season, but then veteran shortstop J.J. Hardy was put on the disabled list with a broken bone in his foot and Machado was needed to take his place as the captain of the infield.
Instead of getting a day off or two for a mental and physical respite, Machado was pushed into a higher-stress situation for the seven weeks it took to get Hardy back.
Though none of this seemed to affect Machado's Most Valuable Player-caliber performance, it's fair to wonder whether all those games and all that responsibility were in play when he charged the mound June 7 and when he later drew on-air criticism from Mid-Atlantic Sports Network broadcasters Jim Palmer and Joe Angel for not running hard on a couple of long hits.
Showalter seemed to think so and downplayed the hustle questions, pointing to Machado's tender age and the fact that he had played more than 200 games in a row as reasons to “cut him some slack.”
So maybe that four-game suspension that kept him out of sight from last Sunday until he arrived at Camden Yards on Friday afternoon was — to carefully avoid the obvious and overused cliche — a fortuitous event dressed like something else.
The consecutive-games streak ended before it really started, and Showalter never had to force Machado to take a day off. Machado insisted again Friday that it was never an issue anyway.
“I'm going to play as much as I can,” Machado said. “Injuries come up and things happen throughout the process, but I'm going out there trying to play as many games as I can and help my team win. I go out there every day not thinking about how many games I can play consecutively. … Hopefully, I can play 20 years. I'd rather have 20 years in my pocket than a lot of consecutive games. Like I've said, nobody is ever going to beat Cal's record.”
Still, it isn't lost on players such as Machado and teammate Adam Jones that while Ripken set a standard in Baltimore that might never be equaled, the work ethic that spawned his historic achievement is still something worth emulating.
Jones played all but five regular-season games from 2012 through 2014, but Showalter had to step in when it became apparent that a series of nagging injuries was wearing the center fielder down last season. It wasn't an easy sell because Jones is a stubborn gamer, but he knew it was the right way to handle a difficult situation.
Jones wasn't willing to concede, however, that the four-game suspension was a good thing for his younger teammate at this point in the season.
“He doesn't need any time off,” Jones said. “He's 23. He can play every single day. He should have tried to break Cal's record, to be honest with you.”
PREVIOUS ARTICLE
