Last time we touched on Nats outfielder Elijah Dukes, it was to share the tale of his run-in with his own manager — Manny Acta. Acta was pissed that Dukes had big-timed a home run and let him hear it, but Dukes wasn’t having any of that discipline. Well, Dukes the hothead was at it again, picking a fight with Mets pitcher Mike Pelfrey. Pelfrey denies there was anything intentional at play when he came inside on Dukes:
“I definitely was not trying to hit him,” Pelfrey said. “I was just happy in his last at-bat when I hit him [in the fifth inning] that he knew it wasn’t on purpose. He’s probably not the guy, you know, you want to make mad. He flipped out, and I didn’t even think that ball was even close, so I looked back at him and said, ‘Why would I hit you?’ I know he’s an aggressive hitter, and I was just trying to get the ball in on him.”
After Dukes settled back into the batters box, he whacked a double and later came around to score. On his way to the Nats dugout, he blew a kiss to Mets fans that were booing him, and then used his arms to pound his groin area so as to say “Suck it!” with his arms. Check it out at the 1:50 mark in this video, or the pictures below.
