Machado calls first-career ejection justified

BALTIMORE -- Orioles third baseman Manny Machado was ejected in the bottom of the fifth inning Thursday after arguing with home-plate umpire Will Little that he foul-tipped a strike.

Machado swung and missed at a pitch in the dirt -- the replay appeared to show he did not make contact with the pitch -- and had a few words for Little on his way back to the dugout.

Little removed his mask and ejected Machado from the game.

"I swung at a bad pitch. I thought I fouled it off. Obviously, I looked back on the replay, and I didn't," Machado said after the Orioles 7-3 victory. "Something that I said wrong to the umpire, and I have to pay the consequences for it. Let my team down. Obviously, something that won't happen again."

He did not specify what he said, but he said he felt the ejection was justified.

"It was an expletive, and then something directed at [Little]," crew chief Ted Barrett said. "So that's an automatic ejection. He knows that."

Before he was tossed from Thursday's game, Machado had played every inning -- 1,206, to be exact -- since the Orioles selected his contract in August. That was the longest active streak in the Majors.

"When I heard about it, the streak I had going, obviously it's devastating, but I just caused that on myself. That's something that, like I said before, something that I just have to pay the consequences for, and I did."