Manny Machado, of the Dodgers, responds to critics and says to himself "Johnny Hustle" is not his "cup of tea"

Manny Machado is often considered one of the best players in the game. In the regular season, he hit .27 / .367 / .538 with 37 runs at home. He will qualify for a free contract this winter and, at age 26, he is likely to receive a lucrative long-term contract from a competitor.

Yet all discussions on Machado during the National League championship series focused on topics other than his talent or production. In the second game, he did not fail to play on the ground in what turned out to be a one-point match. In game 3, he made a pair of questionable slides, the latter causing a double game.

Ken Rosenthal spoke to Machado in an interview that FS1 will broadcast before the fourth game on Tuesday night. Previously, Rosenthal had posted part of the transcript on athletics. Here is Machado, in his own words, about why he does not run very hard:

"Uhhh … (pause) … I thought about it and it happens every time, there's no excuse for that honestly, I've never apologized for it I'm not hurt, there's no excuse but I've been the same player … I've been doing this for eight years, I've been in The Show for eight years, I do the same thing for eight years, I'm the same player (Machado just finished his seventh season.)

"Obviously, I'm not going to change, I'm not the type of player that will be" Johnny Hustle ", and I'm going to the tip of the foot and I'm sliding down to first base and … you know, all that that can happen.This is not just my personality.It is not my cup of tea, it 's not who I am.

Give Machado so much credit: this is not a common answer. He could have said that he was not running to conserve his energy later in games or playoffs – or that he did not want to shoot something while trying to beat a game that would be converted to 99.9 percent of the total. time. Instead, he was frank: he was not always jostling. He knows it.

At the same time, it is strange that Machado offers these comments weeks before the start of his free time. Are the teams going to value Machado less because he is not running for the brokers? No, not likely. But that certainly means that he will certainly be faced with new questions regarding his haste, be it this winter, next spring or next October.