Baseball Chat

[Linchuck]

No Love Lost Between Ex-Teammates Mark Teixeira, Vicente Padilla

NEW YORK – If Mark Teixeira misses anything from his 4 1/2 seasons with the Rangers, it isn't Vicente Padilla.

Teixiera, now with the Yankees, glared at Padilla on Tuesday after the right-hander plunked him for the second time in the game, in the fourth inning of the Yankees' 12-3 rout. Later that inning Teixeira went in hard at second base to break up a double play and keep a seven-run rally going.

Then afterward, Teixeira made it clear what he thought of his ex-teammate.

"It's just not the right way to play the game," Teixeira said. "Unfortunately, that guy's been doing it his whole career."

Through an interpreter, Padilla told reporters: "If he thinks it was intentional, it's just stupid."

The pitch hit Teixeira in the rear end.

"I think he was trying to get inside on him to keep him from diving out over the plate," Rangers manager Ron Washington said.

In the top of the fifth, A.J. Burnett threw a pitch over the head of Texas' Nelson Cruz (who had homered in the third), and both teams were warned by home-plate umpire Doug Eddings. Nothing further happened.

Teixeira first faced Padilla on June 9, 2005, when Padilla was with the Phillies. Teixeira homered in the first and third innings and got hit in the fifth.

"Every time I've faced him since," Teixeira said, "there's seemed to be balls near my head, near my body. And today I got hit twice."

The two wound up teammates for 2006 and part of 2007.

"I remember getting hit a lot because he was hitting other players," Teixeira said. "There's no reason for it. Tonight, the same kind of thing."

In fact, Teixeira was hit by a pitch seven times while Padilla was his teammate, but only one of those came in a game in which Padilla pitched.

Teixeira said he got no response when, in their time in Texas, he told Padilla to stop throwing at batters.

"If you can't get a guy out, don't hit him," Teixeira said Tuesday. "If you don't want to pitch to a guy, put four fingers out there and walk him."

Asked if his hard slide into second was payback, Teixeira smiled.

"It was," he said, "a good coincidence."