Bryce Harper’s half-hearted punishment is just another sign of Nats dysfunction

It might be easy to forget, considering all the drama surrounding Jonathan Papelbon, Bryce Harper and their dugout fight on Sunday, but the Washington Nationals did in fact have a baseball game scheduled for Monday. First pitch against the Cincinnati Reds was at 3:05 p.m. ET and Harper wasn’t in the lineup.

At the close of business Sunday, Harper was scheduled to have the day off on Monday. It’s a meaningless make-up game before the Nats hit the road to close their season, so might as well give him a breather, right?

But then Monday came. Papelbon was suspended for the rest of the season. Manager Matt Williams arrived more than an hour later for his pre-game press conference and instead of having a scheduled day off, Harper all of a sudden wasn’t playing Monday because he was punished for Sunday’s incident.

Wait, what?

(Getty Images) Williams told the group of gathered reporters: “We have to govern ourselves the way we govern ourselves. Now we have to address it. From my view of the incident, [Harper] said something to Jonathan and he played a part in the incident … We reflect that with Bryce being out of the lineup today.”

On its face, sure. Harper did escalate the incident. He could have walked right past Papelbon yelling at him, ignored it all and went about his business. Instead, Harper yelled back and got Papelbon’s hands around his throat. It turned the biggest disappointment in MLB into the biggest drama too.

The Nats rightly sent Papelbon home for the year, as his four-game suspension from the team added to his three-game suspension from MLB for throwing at Manny Machado’s head accounts for the team’s final seven games. The Nats will likely fire Williams soon enough. He lost the team before this incident and he never was able to turn around the underachieving Nats.

But what about Harper? He’s the face of the franchise. He’s the likely MVP. And he’s the guy who felt the Johnny-Come-Lately closer wrap his hands around his neck. And now he’s kind of being punished, but kind of not? Which is it, Nats? It’s the kind of mixed message that just screams dysfunction.

On one hand, it’s a pretty easy punishment for Harper to serve. He had the day off anyway! On the other hand, what message is being sent? The club obviously didn’t feel like it needed to punish him too harshly, if they’re just dressing up a scheduled off-day as a penalty. Williams made no mention of a “suspension” for Harper. It’s more of a “you sit there and think about what you did” type of punishment.

(Getty Images) Interestingly, Williams otherwise defended Harper in his press conference. He praised Harper’s season and pointed out that his star outfielder did indeed run to first base on the play in question.

“Could he have run harder? Yes, but there are many instances where everybody could in the course of a season,” Williams said. “Fact of the matter is, he made it to first base and if that ball falls he’s on first base.”

So what purposes exactly does this “punishment” serve? Do the Nats feel like they have to dole out punishment on both sides to be fair? Do they feel like they need to keep up with the unwritten rules of baseball?

If the Nats think Harper’s actions deserve a punishment, then they should absolutely punish him — fine him or make him miss another game this week. And if they don’t, Matt Williams should have said something in his press conference like: “We had planned to give Bryce the day off Monday and after the tumultuous events yesterday, now that plan makes even more sense.”

Don’t throw out this wishy-washy, half-hearted discipline. It doesn’t help the team. It doesn’t help Harper. All it does is reinforce what we already thought about the Nats this season — they’re a complete mess.

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