SAN DIEGO — Padres third baseman Manny Machado tried a hidden-ball trick against the Boston Red Sox and it ended up costing San Diego at least one run Saturday.
With Jarren Duran on third base and one out in the third inning, Machado still had the ball after Alex Bregman was caught in a rundown on the previous play. With reliever Wandy Peralta on the rubber, Machado tagged Duran near the bag.
Duran pointed to the mound and third base umpire Scott Barry called a balk, scoring Duran to give Boston a 2-1 lead. Trevor Story moved from second to third.
By rule, the pitcher cannot be on the rubber for a hidden-ball trick to be legal. If another player tags a runner while the pitcher is standing on or straddling the rubber, it’s a balk.
“I thought it was a great baseball play. I’ll take some responsibility,” San Diego manager Mike Shildt said. “We want to work on everything that can possibly happen in spring training. It’s my miss that we didn’t. You just can’t be on the rubber when that happens. But Manny’s IQ shows up again. Just something we didn’t work on. He was on the rubber. But he had him.”
Masataka Yoshida then hit a grounder to bring in Story and make it 3-1. The Padres pulled to 3-2 in the bottom of the inning and went ahead 4-3 in the fifth.
San Diego won 5-4 in 10 innings when Ramon Laureano singled in former Red Sox star Xander Bogaerts from second with no outs.
