Notes
Machado sits out finale with sore finger
Smith bounces foul ball off face, hits home run one at-bat later
“We’ll see,” Showalter said. “His finger is pretty sore today, and he had some swelling there. But [head athletic trainer
“... I’m hoping Jon is back to 100 percent and Manny — I shouldn’t say 100, more like 90 percent, so they can play.”
Machado had played every inning of the team’s 38 games entering the day, but the problem has developed on some recent foul balls and the team decided to give it a chance to heal.
“He said he’s felt it just hitting a couple balls off the end of the bat,” Showalter said after the game. “We used to call it growing up, ‘the bat rattles.’ It just hasn’t gotten any better.
“Thinking about the three possibilities [to sit] today, I thought he was in the most need of it.”
However, the blow near his eye worsened to the point that he wouldn’t have been able to hit in the ninth inning had his spot come up.
“He had some blurry vision, eye was watering — real windy day,” Showalter said. “His eye was swelling, and they kept ice on it in between innings. He was tearing up, his vision.
“I wasn’t going to put him up there with a guy throwing that hard and him not being able to see properly. It just got a little worse there in those last two innings. It was good for the home run, though. That was a long ball.”
Smith said the ball didn’t catch him in the eye itself, but just below his left eye, almost high on his upper cheek bone. He believes the swelling has something to do with his sight being a bit off.
“Eye itself is all right,” he said. “Vision is a little blurry. Didn’t hit me in the eye, I imagine there’s something pushing on it. But I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. … When it first happened, it didn’t and then in the outfield the next inning I noticed it, and then it got a little blurry.”
The batting eye is a precious thing for any hitter, but especially someone with the understanding of the strike zone that Smith has. With two hits Thursday, he raised his average to .310, and his .392 on-base percentage is best on the team.
After that, he’ll go out on what will likely be considered a major league rehabilitation assignment, as opposed to just optioning him.
He also told his favorite Robinson yarn about how he saw him while house-shopping when he first arrived in Baltimore.
“Where he lives, it was actually too far out and a little high-rent,” Showalter said. “A little too far. But we were driving around because it was so pretty and I said, ‘Jeez, there’s Brooks walking down the road.’ He and his wife are walking in the neighborhood. It was just starting to drizzle, and I said, ‘We’ve got to stop.’ So we stopped and I said, ‘Hi, Brooks, how are you doing?’ He says, ‘Hi, Buck, how are you doing?’ He started talking about the Orioles and baseball and it started raining. His wife said, ‘Come on, Brooks, let’s go.’ He said, ‘No, I’m talking to Buck.’ We just stayed there and talked.”
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