Updating this report to include the following:
The Washington Nationals have suspended Jonathan Papelbon for four games or essentially the remainder of the season.
Papelbon dropped the appeal of his three-game suspension for hitting Baltimore’s Manny Machado, so he’ll be out for the seven remaining games of Washington’s season.
“The behavior exhibited by Papelbon yesterday is not acceptable,” Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said in a statement. “That is not at all in line with the way our players are expected to conduct themselves and the Nationals organization will not tolerate it in any way.”
* * * * * * * * * *
After the Washington Nationals were eliminated from the postseason on Saturday when the New York Mets clinched the NL East title, things have deteriorated rapidly in DC culminating in an all-out brawl between MVP candidate Bryce Harper and Nats closer Jonathan Papelbon.
After Harper hit a soft pop up and jogged to first, he was greeted by Papelbon who was barking at him about not running harder. Not one to back down, Harper went off on Papelbon who the responded by grabbing his throat and trying to punch him in the face as teammates rushed to pull the two players apart.
[iframe]<iframe src=’https://m.mlb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=505505983&topic_id=6479266&width=500&height=284&property=mlb’ width=’500′ height=’284′ frameborder=’0′>Your browser does not support iframes.</iframe>[/iframe]
Wow, that was ugly…
There were rumblings that Harper was not happy about Papelbon twice throwing to Manny Machado of the Baltimore Orioles last week and he was letting everyone on the team know about it. This could have fueled Papelbon’s fire today, who appealed his suspension.
Harper was immediately removed from the game, while Papelbon pitched the ninth and blew the save after getting tagged for a game tying two-run homer.
This morning, Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post reported that Nationals manager Matt Williams has completely lost his clubhouse, which is why he believes they lost the division lead in the NL East to the Mets.
“Now, several Nationals players believe Williams won’t be able to grow even if the club brings him back for 2016. And this isn’t just one or two malcontents. These opinions span positions and experience. “It’s a terrible environment,” one player said. “And the amazing part is everybody feels that way.”
Thing have devolved into total chaos over there…
Good for us!
