David Ortiz's Showy Bat Flip Irks Joe Girardi, Yankees
NEW YORK (WFAN/AP) -- The Yankees understand the occasional loss is merely a part of baseball.
Just don't show them up in Yankee Stadium.
Red Sox slugger David Ortiz got under the skin of manager Joe Girardi with his showy bat flip after hitting a two-run homer off Hector Noesi in the fifth inning of last night's 6-4 loss.
Girardi was concerned that Ortiz would offend the 24-year-old rookie reliever.
"Yeah, I didn't really care for it," Girardi said. "I've never had a problem with David Ortiz. He's been a clutch player for a long time. My reaction's probably more protecting our young kid. And that's what I'm going to do."
Catcher Russell Martin had a good view of the blast -- and wasn't too pleased with Ortiz's theatrics.
"He took a long time getting out of the box," said Martin. "You never want it to happen to you, but I guess it's up to us to do it back right to him."
Ortiz dismissed any ill-intent on the flip.
"That's Papi style. You've seen that before," he said. "I just went deep. You want more emotion than that?"
"It's not my first time. It's not going to be my last time," Ortiz added. "Big deal. I'm a home run hitter. ... It's not like I do it all the time. I'm humble."
"It's part of the game. Some guys do it, some guys don't," Martin. said "I've seen him do it before. I like it better when he's doing it against other teams. I think it's partly because we threw a ball way in, and it almost nicked him. And he kind of rubbed it in our face."
What did you think of Big Papi's flip? Fire away in the comments below...
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