SAN DIEGO – Let’s be very clear from the start: The Nationals did not intentionally hit Jurickson Profar during Tuesday’s game. Nor did manager Davey Martinez suggest that they did so during his postgame press conference.

Yes, Keibert Ruiz confronted Profar before his first at-bat last night, leading to both benches and bullpens clearing. Yes, MacKenzie Gore hit Profar with the first pitch. But the left-hander hit the back foot of the switcher-hitter, who was standing in on the right-handed side of the plate. A nearly impossible feat to accomplish on purpose.

And yes, Martinez said he was proud of the way his team – i.e. Ruiz – handled the situation by having a conversation, not by using physical retaliation.

As is commonplace on social media nowadays, some misinformation circulated online this morning speculating otherwise. And that’s the proper word for what happened because Martinez’s quotes were taken totally out of context.

For proper context, the portion of the manager’s postgame session that aired on MASN’s “Nats Xtra” postgame show started after the first couple of questions were already asked and didn’t include the question that Martinez was answering.

SAN DIEGO – There was underlying tension ahead of this second game between the Nationals and Padres.

After Jurickson Profar took exception to two inside pitches that weren’t really close to hitting him then walked off the Nats and directed his celebration toward the visiting dugout last night, some members of the Nationals bench waited around to see if things would escalate.

They didn’t then. But it didn’t take long for it to carry over into tonight’s game.

The Nationals ended up losing 9-7 to the Padres, but not before both benches cleared in the first inning with Keibert Ruiz and Profar getting into it.

“It was nothing crazy," Ruiz said after the game. "We were just having a conversation about what he did yesterday. But it was nothing really crazy.”

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