Nationals Suspend Papelbon Four Games For Harper Incident

[RealGM Wiretap]

The Washington Nationals have suspended Jonathan Papelbon for four games without pay for his role in a dugout incident during which he choked teammate Bryce Harper.

The team suspension will kick in on Thursday after Papelbon first serves a three-game suspension that was levied by Major League Baseball.

Papelbon had been appealing the league's suspension, which stemmed from him throwing up and in at Manny Machado, but he has since dropped the appeal.

"The behavior exhibited by Papelbon yesterday is not acceptable," 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."

Via Eddie Matz/ESPN

[Dennis 37]

Harper, who is an MVP candidate, acts completely unprofessional in his unwillingness to run out a pop up. While Papelbon gets the suspension, Harper seems to get rewarded for trying to defend the indefensible.

Next time maybe Harper will think twice about his base running responsibilities.

[The_Hater]

Harper, who is an MVP candidate, acts completely unprofessional in his unwillingness to run out a pop up. While Papelbon gets the suspension, Harper seems to get rewarded for trying to defend the indefensible.

Next time maybe Harper will think twice about his base running responsibilities.

Harper did run out the pop up. He even touched first base. I think Pap was questioning him for not running as hard as he possibly could.

Considering that not running as hard as possible happens several times a game with all kinds of different players, I'm not exactly sure how that's worse than Pap berating Harper and then attacking him in the dogout. Even Ignoring the fact that Harper is the teams best player, you've got a weird sense of where to lay the blame on this one.