Padres closer Robert Suarez suspended three games, fined for hitting Shohei Ohtani with pitch

San Diego Padres closer Robert Suarez was suspended for three games and fined an undisclosed amount Friday for intentionally hitting Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers with a pitch during the NL West rivals’ contentious meeting Thursday night.Suarez will appeal the suspension, keeping him eligible to play for San Diego on Friday night against Kansas City.Padres manager Mike Shildt and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts also received one-game suspensions and undisclosed fines for their roles in the brouhaha that occurred in both halves of the ninth inning during the Padres’ 5-3 victory at Dodger Stadium.“I support it,” Roberts said about the league’s disciplinary decision.“I think that obviously I never want to make the game about the managers.

It shouldn’t be.It should be about the players and winning, so last night, both managers are protecting their teams, and it just unfortunately got to the point that we became the focus, and that’s not the way it should be.”Both managers were ejected in the top of the ninth after they ran onto the field and bumped into each other during a vociferous argument that almost got even more physical before their players and assistant coaches intervened.Shildt believed Dodgers reliever Jack Little intentionally hit Fernando Tatís Jr.

in the right hand with a pitch, igniting the latest bench-clearing incident between local rivals with several years of bad-tempered history.“Circumstances were really challenging this past series, and at the end of the day I don’t regret standing up for a guy that I love in Tati, and a team that I love and a city that I love,” Shildt said.“In that regard, I have no regrets how it got to that point.

Again, we can all have our comments and thoughts and theories.“But as far as my actions, it’s not something you want to do every night or needs to be done, hopefully ever again.

But appropriate actions for the circumstances were taken, and I don’t regret it at all.”Shildt a...