Bryce Harper gets hit the elbow by a Spencer Strider fastball. (Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon … More
The question buzzing around Philadelphia on Wednesday is a moral conundrum: Should the Phillies retaliate for Braves pitcher Spencer Strider drilling Bryce Harper with a 95-mph fastball in the elbow on Tuesday night? Harper crumbled to one knee, wincing in anguish, as Phillies fans quaked with their worst possible nightmare — that their superstar first-baseman is seriously injured.
Well, scans of Harper’s arm revealed no serious damage, but will damage be done to the team’s morale if a Phillies pitcher fails to stick up for their boy?
First, here’s the pitch in question:
Strider sounded apologetic, although he made this odd little statement: “I’m not a complete sociopath, so I have some empathy” for Harper. And, on surface, nothing looked suspicious about the pitch. Just seems like Strider missed his inside target — granted by a lot — but it didn’t appear intentional, so the Phillies should make like Elsa and let it go. Or maybe not…
Maybe it was the Braves who were retaliating. Go back to Game 3 of the 2023 NLDS when Harper stared down Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia on two separate occasions while circling the bases on two different home runs. Arcia allegedly mocked the Phillies’ slugger with an “Atta boy, Harper” in the privacy of his own clubhouse after Harper made the final out in the previous game.
Here’s one of the iconic stare-downs from Harper:
It may sound ridiculous for the Braves to hold a grudge for almost a season and a half but that’s not unusual in baseball. A Harper-Hunter Strickland beef went dormant for three years before it exploded into an infamous brawl. Click here to see that doozy broken down by Jomboy.
So if the Braves are retaliating for the Harper stare-down, the question really is: Would the Phillies counter-retaliate? Maybe it doesn’t matter whether Strider’s pitch was intentional or not, and the Phils still act with a purpose pitch of their own because Harper had been drilled twice in the previous series against the A’s.
Philly could hammer home a message to all of MLB: If you hit our guy, we hit yours — accident or not. S0 silly, right? Not to former Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro, who says a Brave player “will pay for it” and “retaliation is the right thing to do.” Here’s Amaro pontificating on the issue post-game:
Back in the day, it would have been a guarantee: a revenge pitch would have been on its way in the same game, igniting a bench-clearing brouhaha and a slew of ejections. But baseball is a little more civilized theses day — well, until it’s not. Down-goes-Anderson was only two seasons ago:
