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On Monday, Giants reliever Hunter Strickland hit Bryce Harper with a pitch and a brawl ensued. It seemed to come from some history between the two players that dates back to 2014. 

Obviously, this was bound to dominate the conversation in the locker rooms after the game. On the Giants' side, Strickland basically went with the whole "I was trying to throw inside and missed" defense, so that's boring. There's more juice from the Nationals' side, though. 

Manager Dusty Baker doesn't believe for a second the pitch was an accident and second baseman Daniel Murphy wasn't happy. 

Here's Harper, via Dan Kolko of MASN: 

  • On the 2014 home runs: "It's so in the past, it's not even relevant anymore. They won the World Series that year. I don't think he should even be thinking about what happened in the first round. He should be thinking about wearing that ring home every single night." 
  • "A baseball is a weapon and to be able to use that to his advantage, I guess that's just what he wanted to do in that situation. You never want to get suspended or anything like that, but sometimes you've got to go and get him." 
  • "It was three years ago. Over 1,000 days, I guess you could say. I don't know why he's thinking about it. He's got a World Series ring." 

Harper apparently wasn't alone in pointing out that the history was pretty old: 

Much of the focus was on Strickland and not the Giants as a whole. 

So there we have it. Things shouldn't linger into the following two games of the series this week but we will likely see suspensions for both Harper and Strickland. Past that, it should be over.