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Breaking it down: Was Hunter Strickland, Bryce Harper brawl mishandled all around?

By Roger Rubin, The Sports Xchange
Washington Nationals right fielder Bryce Harper (34) adjust his helmet in the fifth inning. File photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI
Washington Nationals right fielder Bryce Harper (34) adjust his helmet in the fifth inning. File photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Baseball veered into the Theater of the Absurd this week and from start to finish the performance was head-shaking unexplainable.

It started with San Francisco reliever Hunter Strickland drilling Washington Nationals star Bryce Harper in the hip with a 98 mph fastball Monday. Harper's response was to incite a bench-clearing brawl. And on Tuesday, Major League Baseball handed down suspensions that can be debated for the justice they were supposed to bring.

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Strickland was suspended for six games and Harper for four. The Strickland penalty should have been twice what it was.

So soup-to-nuts, there was bad form all around.

Start with the incident. Baseball has unwritten rules, often polices itself and sometimes that means pitchers plunking hitters. That's no secret. Strickland's decision to go after Harper like a thug was based on the right-hander feeling "shown up" by the outfielder in the 2014 National League Division Series. Harper hit a long home run off Strickland in Game 1 and put a Strickland pitch in the McCovey Cove at AT&T Park in Game 4.

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Did Harper "pimp" the homers? No doubt he wanted to watch them go. No question he eyed Strickland all the way around the bases after watching the entire flight of the ball on the second one.

But this was from three seasons ago. And it happened in a series that the Giants won en route to capturing the World Series championship. He wants a pound of flesh now? It's thuggish buffoonery.

Harper has a way of getting under people's skin with the way he plays the game. Still he made a choice. He could have just gone to first base. Instead he charged the mound, badly missed the mark when he fired his helmet at Strickland and the two exchanged blows to set off the brawl.

Players sometimes get hurt in a brawl and that means the arc of a team's season could change. The Nationals are off to an amazing start this season, leading the NL East by 8 1/2 games entering Tuesday. This was no time to lose his cool, but Harper did. Even after the game he said "it's so in the past that it's not even relevant anymore."

If you want to get a barometer on exactly how ridiculous every part of this was, just watch a replay and keep your eyes on Giants star catcher Buster Posey. Most of the time when baseball is policing itself this way, you see the catcher intervene to try to prevent the charge at the mound. Posey knew this was coming. His inaction -- letting it happen without making a move -- speaks to what he thought of it.

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He didn't approve. He knew his team needs him and he didn't want to get hurt in a brawl. He's the only smart person in this entire imbroglio.

After it was over, Strickland seemed pretty pleased with himself. That seems like a head full of loose wiring.

Now to MLB, which tried to dispense justice with its penalties. Both players were fined undisclosed amounts. Strickland got the six-game suspension. Harper was locked down for the four.

If there was any measure of insight in these judgements, it's that Strickland got the longer suspension. Clearly, MLB saw deploying the "unwritten rules" badly and three seasons later as the bigger transgression. Strickland set this whole thing off with an ego bruised in a postseason where he ended up wearing a ring.

So if Strickland, and thus the Giants, committed the bigger sin, why are the Nationals paying the higher freight in this dispensing of justice?

Washington has to go four games without the linchpin in its offense. Strickland might have pitched in three or four games for San Francisco and how many batters would he have faced?

MLB has to come down on a player who escalates a scenario and charges the mound to ignite a bench-clearing brawl. No question about that. But to hand down a verdict that penalizes the bigger sin less? This is a big-time error in judgement.

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Strickland did something dangerous -- and throwing 98 at someone is absolutely dangerous -- with questionable motive and without regard for consequences. He planned it. He executed his plan.

Harper was reacting in the moment. His decision was bad, but at least understandable. The ball is small, but it can do serious damage at 98.

It's a good thing that MLB tries to dispense judgement. It might be a good thing that baseball polices its own conduct. The league and the players need to see that there has always been a right way to do both.

Almost no one did anything right here.

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