Anyone else remember the replay just before his ground out? He'd checked his swing, and he must have heard a Brewer (prob Kratz) protest that he'd gone too far. The camera caught him pointing to the ump at 1B as if to say "yeah, go ahead, appeal, I didn't swing." He looked furious. Joe Buck seemed to think it was funny and chuckled at it.
Means nothing but he was worked up over something; sometimes (rarely) players get mad at a player on the other side advocating against them, maybe it was that?
The telltale thing in the play for me is the way he sort of breaks his stride to drag his pointed foot across the space Aguilar's was positioned on the bag, and then his reaction. He was defiant but you could see he knew he'd just gotten caught doing something fucked up.
Yelich's right, all things considered that is what he is now. A dirty player. There's no doubt. I'm eating crow because coupled with Pedroia's "it wasn't dirty" thing I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The slides and now last night, I was 100% wrong.
Something telling about a guy who feels like he can tell a reporter he dogs it in the playoffs and oh well, that's just how it is. Debates over how practically bad that really is on easy ground-outs aside, he's told himself he's good enough he can do and say whatever he wants, and it shows.