By Yours Truly
http://throneberryfields.com/2017/05/30/skip-sublime-go-ridiculous-almost-three-years-later/Between the end of the 2014 National League division series and this Memorial Day, Bryce Harper hadn’t batted
against Hunter Strickland. During that NLDS, Harper faced Strickland twice and took him deep twice, both mammoth
blasts, one of them a splash hit in the deciding Game Four:
Two years and seven months is an awful long time to hold a grudge for two ICBMs one of which the hitter couldn’t
help stopping to wonder about, isn’t it? And that was
in a division series the Giants won, mostly because a) Harper
was just about the only Nationals bat that didn’t fall asleep at the switch, and b) then-Nats manager Matt Williams
mis-managed his bullpen and,
telegraphing the following season’s disaster,
couldn’t put his Book down long enough to manage in the moment’s need.
Apparently, it wasn’t long enough for Strickland.
Facing Harper at the plate in the eighth with two outs, no one aboard, and the Giants in a 2-0 hole, he threw a first
pitch fastball right at Harper’s anatomy, drilling him square on the hip. Of
course Strickland was just trying to pitch
Harper inside, with no intent to hit him. And of
course the neighbour’s china closet, through which Junior just planted
his foot, had no business being there in the first place.
Bad enough that, last year, the Rangers
decided to aim for a little payback toward Toronto’s Jose Bautista—in the last
regular-season game between those teams, and near the end of the game—over a seven month old bat flip. A seven
month old grudge was its own kind of ridiculous. A three-year-old grudge? Calling it “ridiculous” would be something
like calling the Manchester concert bombing a prank gone haywire.
All right, everyone take a quick pause to vote. What was the funnier moment in this markedly unfunny situation: Harper
unable to aim his batting helmet? Or—after what seemed like a long delay before any Giants poured in from the infield
or out of the dugout as Harper engaged Strickland—Giants first baseman Michael Morse and pitcher Jeff Samardzija
colliding en route, like
two of the old three goofy cartoon guards en route answering the summons of their king?
The two actually traded a couple of punches before anyone else arrived to try breaking it up. Harper admitted taking a
scratch when Anthony Rendon pulled him out of the rumble. Strickland needed three teammates, Hunter Pence, George
Kontos, and Mac Williamson, to get him out of there. Both Harper and Strickland were ejected. Both are likely to face
suspensions from baseball government. Buster Olney of ESPN makes a case
that the Giants ought to discipline Strickland
by themselves, too.
It wouldn’t be unprecedented. The Orioles once sent a message to then-closer Armando Benitez after he triggered a
brawl with the Mariners by drilling Tino Martinez right after Edgar Martinez hit a grand slam. When they found him at
his locker following his ejection, threatening to quit, the Orioles sent him to the minors for three weeks. Five years
later, Benitez drilled Martinez, now a Yankee, again, after a Bernie Williams three-run bomb. During the scrum not one
Oriole told one Yankee Benitez was in the right.
Just this month the Blue Jays’ Kevin Pillar hollered an anti-gay insult at Braves pitcher Jason Motte after Motte quick-
pitched him into a strikeout. The Jays went right to baseball government to collaborate, Pillar got docked two games,
one and all making clear it was the Jays’ idea, and Pillar was compelled to apologise and take full blame. The Giants,
Olney says, appropriately, need to hold Strickland accountable likewise.
Harper could credit Strickland for not going head hunting, at least, throwing at the right spot on his anatomy, but that
still didn’t make an almost three-year-old grudge right.
“I don’t want to go on a baseball field and try to fight somebody,” Harper said after the melee. “Especially when it’s
somebody that it’s in the past. It’s so in the past that it’s not even relevant anymore. They won the World Series that
year. I don’t even think he should be thinking about what happened in the first round. He should be thinking about
wearing that ring home every single night. I don’t know why he did it or what he did it for, but I guess it happens.”
The other hot conversation topic around the Strickland-Harper dance was Giants catcher Buster Posey. He stayed behind
the plate with a look through his mask that could have been taken to say,
You’re on your own, bro, I didn’t call for that
pitch, and wouldn’t it be easier not to throw home run pitches than to steam about them for almost three years?It also could have been taken to say, though Posey has too much class to say it outright and vocal,
I hope you made it a
good one, because you’re
not the one they’re going to go after for being a jackass, I
am. Hell, I’ll be first
on the hit
parade if those guys decide to pay us back for your almost three-year-old ego bruise.
Some, like Fox Sports’s Ken Rosenthal, think Posey may have acted under orders. Rosenthal cited Giants broadcaster
(and former pitcher) Mike Krukow saying Posey—who’s suffered concussions during his career—was ordered to stay
out of fights on the field, but who gave the order Krukow didn’t say.
Rosenthal also thinks it’s possible Strickland might have told Posey beforehand that he planned to get Harper and to
kindly stay out of it. After
first writing that he thought Posey was simply sending a message that he didn’t approve
of ridiculous execution of baseball’s unwritten rules, so-called, Rosenthal said another club’s coach
contacted him to
suggest Strickland just might have given his catcher such an instruction.
My own thought was that Posey reminded me for a moment of Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, sending a
signal of “It wasn’t me!” after Matt Barnes threw at Manny Machado’s head, two days after Machado inadvertently
spiked Pedroia on a hard slide at second base—for which Machado apologised right after the game—and several
innings after several Red Sox pitchers threw too close to Machado for comfort before Barnes’ high hard one almost
took Machado’s head off.
Pedroia tried to send a message that he knew too much was more than enough two days after the fact. Posey wouldn’t
have been out of line if he was trying to send Strickland and his teammates the same message about too much being
enough almost three years after the fact.
The Giants wouldn’t be out of line sending the same message by suspending Strickland on their own, before baseball
government sticks its fool nose into it. (Neither has, at this writing.) Protecting your teammates is one thing. Trying to
make someone answer for nearly three-year-old postseason humiliation is trying to protect nothing but your ego. An ego
overdue for re-tuning, if
that old a pair of long home runs still has you
that steamed.
