Verdugo rips Jays' Manoah for 'disrespecting' opponents on mound
Warning: Story contains coarse language
Boston Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo has a bone to pick with Toronto Blue Jays ace Alek Manoah and his fiery reactions on the mound.
Verdugo believes Manoah crossed a line when he yelled at some of his Red Sox teammates after striking them out in a game last season.
"I'll say it right now, I think Alek Manoah goes about it the wrong way, 100% I think he does," Verdugo told WEEI's Rob Bradford on the "Baseball Isn't Boring" podcast. "You can find videos of him ... in Triple-A going like this to hitters. Last year, telling Franchy (Cordero) and Bobby (Dalbec) 'Go sit,' shit like that, and looking right at them.
"Shit like that just pisses me off. ... It should be played like you're celebrating it with your team, you're not fucking disrespecting another player who is - at the end of the day we're just trying to compete, that's it."
Manoah wasn't too concerned with Verdugo's comments when he heard them.
"Coming from him? I don't give a shit," Manoah told the Toronto Sun's Rob Longley.
Manoah, one of baseball's more fiery pitchers, exchanged words with both Cordero and Dalbec last July after striking them out in the sixth inning of an eventual Toronto victory at Fenway Park. The hurler's Blue Jays teammates led him off the field before the benches could clear.
Verdugo said displaying emotions on the diamond is "good" for the sport overall. However, he believes players should use their emotional outbursts to fire up their teammates, as opposed to getting under the skin of opponents.
"Now, with the whole staring down people (thing), and like throwing your bat crazy, and staring down a pitcher or a pitcher staring at you, looking at you and saying some shit, it's a little bit different. You start ... crossing over into disrespectful. I don't really play like that," Verdugo explained.
"I don't like that shit. That's when I start having a little bit of problems with it. It's like, hey, you want to pimp shit, you want to look at the ball and do whatever you want - skip, hop, jump - like look at the ball. There's no reason to stare at the pitcher and be like, 'Yeah, what's up.'"
He continued: "And then, vice versa, with the pitcher striking out a hitter. You want to get fired up, look at your dugout and (be) like, 'Let's go.' You don't need to look at me at the plate and be like, 'Fuck you, let's go.' ... I think that's when you start getting a little bit muddy. But if it's a genuine reaction and it's for the boys, not against (or) not directed toward somebody, then yeah, (it's fine)."
Verdugo's Red Sox will face off against Manoah's Blue Jays for the first time in 2023 on May 1 in Boston.