What will come of Justin Smoak-Felix Pie dustup?

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Orioles left fielder Felix Pie (18) has words with Mariners first baseman Justin Smoak (17) as umpire Angel Hernandez separates them during the 10th inning. (AP)

By Brady Henderson

A routine ground ball turned into a bench-clearing spat in Tuesday’s Mariners-Orioles game.

Realizing he was dead to rights on his slow grounder to first base, Felix Pie backpedaled to avoid a tag from Justin Smoak. When Pie turned back toward first base and lowered his shoulder, Smoak was there to apply a hard tag, which Pie took exception to.

Dugouts emptied while Smoak and Pie, separated by an umpire, exchanged words.

No punches were thrown and there was no retaliation from either side. But conventional baseball wisdom says that wasn’t the end of it.

Will tonight’s starter Felix Hernandez throw at Pie if he’s in the lineup? According to ESPN’s Buster Olney, the decision could be up to Smoak.

“I’ve had a lot of pitchers tell me that, that they will go to a player who’s involved in a situation like that, or a player’s been hit by a pitch, and they will say, ‘What do you want me to do?'” Olney said. ” … My feel on Justin Smoak, and in the few times I’ve talked to him, and I actually had a conversation about him with Chipper Jones, who’s gotten to know him a little bit, my sense is that he’s a guy who’s going to let stuff roll off his back and he’s not going to be easily offended. That’s probably what he would say, ‘Look, tempers flare a little bit in one day.’

“But if the position player says, ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ then maybe Felix (Hernandez) does it.”

Olney offered another reason why the Mariners might retaliate.

“They want to set a tone. The Mariners want to be heard,” Olney said. “Eric Wedge certainly would be someone who would endorse his players feeling like they needed to stick their elbows out a little bit. That’s his style as well. So who knows? It will be interesting to see.”

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