Josh Naylor and Austin Hedges reopened an old wound on Sunday at Progressive Field, trading insults during the Mariners-Guardians game after Naylor was hit in the arm. What could have been a routine bit of bench noise turned into a pointed confrontation between former teammates, with the Cleveland crowd hearing just enough to know this was not ordinary chatter.
The sequence started in the sixth inning, when Tim Herrin’s 77.7 mph curveball caught Naylor in the arm. The Guardians began chirping that he did not deserve first base, and Naylor answered with his own insults and hand gestures. A Jomboy Media audio clip later captured Hedges telling him, “Nobody likes you. Literally, nobody likes you. Your own f—ing teammates don’t like you.”
That exchange is getting attention because Naylor is not just any visitor in Cleveland. He arrived there in August 2020 as part of a six-player package for Mike Clevinger, became known as the life of the party, and spent years building a reputation that mixed energy, celebration and edge. He had already supplied plenty of that in Cleveland, from the score-tying grand slam and the go-ahead shot against Chicago White Sox in May 2022 to the chest-pounding declaration that he wanted “all the smoke,” followed by the helmet toss in the dugout and, later, the “rock the baby” gesture after homering off Gerrit Cole in the American League Division Series.
But the history also runs the other way. By 2023, the relationship between Naylor and the organization had started to strain, and by Sept. 16, 2024, he was being described as on borrowed time with the Guardians. That day offered a softer image — Kyle Manzardo’s go-ahead home run, then Naylor waiting at home plate with his arms spread wide for a bear hug — and Stephen Vogt was emotional afterward. Sunday pulled the story back in the opposite direction, with a hard stare and sharper words instead of the embrace that once seemed to fit him in Cleveland.
Vogt tried to flatten the moment after the game, calling it “right on par” and saying, “(Naylor) went to first base, and I heard him chirping.” He described it as “two former teammates having a conversation from 90 feet away.” That version sits uneasily beside Hedges’ insult, which made the exchange sound personal rather than routine, and Hedges was not available to comment Monday. For now, the most revealing part may be that neither side sounded surprised; the argument looked less like a one-off flare-up than a reminder that some clubhouse history does not stay buried when the same names end up across from each other again.
