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There’s a problem brewing in South Florida these days and at least this time, it has nothing to do with the weather.

Hanley Ramirez showed more than a little frustration on Tuesday morning when he was probed about being benched by manager Fredi Gonzalez for not hustling after a ball in the second inning of Florida’s 5-1 loss to the Diamondbacks on Monday night.

Here are some snippets from Ramirez’s interview with media from the Miami Herald this morning:

What was reaction when he said he was taking you out of the game?
Ramirez: I just said ‘I’m going to go home. I just wanted to go home. It’s brutal. It’s fine. It’s OK.

Are you angry?
Ramirez: It’s brutal like I said. I’m just going to play the game and he’s just going to have to leave me alone.

Did you lose respect for Gonzalez?
Ramirez: A little bit. We got 24 more guys out there, hopefully they can do the same things I do. That are wearing the Marlins uniform. There’s nothing I can say.

Are you going to apologize to your team for dogging it?
Ramirez: For what? Do what? We have a lot of people dogging it after ground balls. They never pull guys.

Do you want to play for Fredi?
Ramirez: It’s over. I’m done. No more [questions].

Do you hold yourself accountable for not running?
Ramirez: That was as hard as I could go right there. I wasn’t trying like I gave up. That was the hardest I could go after the ball.

Ramirez fouled a pitch off his shin in the bottom of the first inning, which happened before he booted the ball in the second inning and jogged after it. He can try to blame not hustling on the injury, but I implore anyone in their right mind to watch the replay and convince me that he didn’t dog it while running after the ball. I don’t know if he was trying to play it cool after he screwed up or what, but he was clearly not going 100%.

This is one of those times when a star athlete needs to swallow his pride, choke back some of his ego and apologize to his manager, teammates and fans. Ramirez is a phenomenal player, but just because he’s an All-Star it doesn’t give him the right to take plays off. He says that other people dog it “after ground balls” but even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean he should do it. He’s paid a lot of money to do what he does and seeing as how he’s the Marlins’ best player, he should set the bar higher for himself. If he doesn’t, then every team he plays for will have a pretty low ceiling.

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