NEW YORK (AP) - Baltimore pitcher Alfredo Simon has been suspended three games and Orioles manager Buck Showalter has been penalized one game after a run-in this weekend against Toronto.
Simon and Showalter also were fined undisclosed amounts by Major League Baseball after home run leader Jose Bautista of the Blue Jays was plunked Sunday following a warning by the umpires.
Simon has appealed his penalty and can continue to play until the process is complete. Showalter will miss Baltimore’s game Monday night at Tampa Bay and bench coach Jeff Datz will fill in.
Both Bautista and Simon are from the Dominican Republic, and consider themselves friends.
“I do get along pretty well with Simon, so the fact that he hit me, that’s another indicator to me that he might have been told to do so,” Bautista said. “I think he was following orders, I don’t think he wanted to hit me.”
Bautista has 52 home runs this year, including nine against the Orioles. Baltimore starter Rick VandenHurk hit Bautista in the third inning and both benches were warned after Shaun Marcum hit Orioles designated hitter Luke Scott to begin the fourth.
Simon replaced VandenHurk to begin the fifth. Bautista batted with one out and after throwing two balls, the second of which was high and tight, Simon hit the Toronto star on the left forearm and was ejected by plate umpire Bill Welke.
“I understand how it looks and I would have been upset about it, too. There’s nothing you can about it. It looked that way. I can tell you it wasn’t intentional,” Showalter said Monday.
Said Bautista: “It doesn’t give me any pleasure that they were suspended or whatever. It’s just what they deserved.”
Marcum, whose pitch brushed Scott’s jersey, was fined an undisclosed amount. He planned to appeal.
“Everybody around here knows I’ve got good enough control that if I’m going to hit somebody, I’m going to square him up in the back,” Marcum said. “I’m not going to hit him on the sleeve or something like that.”
Marcum didn’t understand why he was fined for hitting Scott before a warning had been given.
“The warnings weren’t even out,” Marcum said. “To hit somebody like that and get a fine for it, I think, is bad judgment on their part.”
Marcum was most upset that Simon, who hadn’t entered a game earlier than the seventh inning all season, was brought in to start the fifth. Bautista was hit moments later.
“I think everybody felt that was intentional,” Marcum said. “He’s a seventh or eighth inning guy throwing in the fifth. I think he came in for one reason and one reason only.”
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