Baseball's complicated relationship with hit by pitches just got a lot more complicated.
Hunter Strickland drilled Bryce Harper in the hip with a 98 mph fastball in Monday's Washington Nationals-San Francisco Giants game, with the obvious intention of trying to hit Harper in the hip. Harper charged the mound, sort of threw his helmet and exchanged punches with Strickland, with both landing blows on each other's faces. It would take four teammates to drag Strickland all the way into the tunnel connected to the Giants dugout.
It was pure bush league from Strickland and that was made clear by catcher Buster Posey's reaction.