© Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
Another day, another piece of controversial news about Manny Machado and the Los Angeles Dodgers. As the Dodgers get set to take on the Boston Red Sox tonight for Game 3 of the World Series, trailing 2-0, they may have another headache to deal with: the Red Sox say they caught Machado stealing signs.
According to what Red Sox pitching coach Dana Levangie told Bleacher Report, during Game 2 of the World Series, in which the Red Sox beat the Dodgers 4-2, the Red Sox caught Machado stealing signs during the fourth inning.
“I wish I would have gone out there before the [Yasiel] Puig at-bat, before he came up in that situation, because I saw the whole thing,” LeVangie said.
With Kike Hernandez at-bat, Boston says Machado put his hands on his hips, then went through a series of overt motions to tip off Hernandez at the plate. According to Bleacher Report, Machado did the following, “Touching his helmet with either his right or left hand, sometimes then touching or pulling the script on his jersey afterward and other times grabbing or touching the thigh/groin area of his pants.”
Levangie said Machado’s antics were easy to spot.
“Was it a little exaggerated? Yeah, maybe, but I saw the whole thing,” LeVangie said. “I had told [Boston manager] Alex [Cora] I wanted to go [to the mound] before the Puig at-bat because I wanted to talk about some things.”
Levangie said he didn’t make that trip to the mound because he didn’t want to interrupt Price’s momentum.
“But when a guy gets a big punchout in that situation and a coach comes out to take a visit,” Machado said. “I didn’t want to f–k with the momentum there because David got a huge strikeout.”
After Puig hit an RBI single, Levangie made that trip to the mound and told Price what he saw.
“I had a clear point I wanted to [make] after that at-bat because I saw Manny the entire time,” Levangie said. “I knew what he was doing.”