MLB Bullets is looking for a fight

I don’t want to live in a (baseball) world without Mike Trout.

• So GIants pitcher Hunter Strickland threw at Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper and all heck broke loose. Grant Brisbee breaks down the whole kerfuffle with photos and snark.
• Matt Snyder outlines the history between Strickland and Harper and how this dates back to some home runs Harper hit off Strickland in the 2014 NLDS. Really? 2014?
• Strickland was suspended for six games and Harper for four games for a fight that occurred after Strickland hit Harper with a pitch.
• Buster Olney argues that the Giants should not have waited for MLB to suspend Strickland and should have suspended him themselves.
• Eddie Matz wonders if Harper didn’t charge the mound, would Strickland have been suspended at all?
• Jeff Passan says all these stupid beanball wars need to end. Again. “How many columns must a sportswriter write, before they are forever banned?”
• Craig Calcaterra writes that both players were being dumb, but that Strickland was a lot dumber than Harper and should be punished accordingly.
• Grant Brisbee examines the unwritten rules about waiting three years before retaliating. Revenge is apparently not only best served cold, but also after it has grown green mold and smells like someone died.
• The biggest casualty in the melee was the Giants’ Michael Morse, who landed on the DL with a concussion after getting accidentally clocked by Jeff Samardzija.
• Chris Bahr has three key questions about the brawl.
• One of those questions is why did catcher Buster Posey just stand there when Harper charged the mound? Mike Axisa has five theories why Posey did nothing. Someone should have said to Strickland “Honey, you’re embarrassing me in front of Buster Posey.”
• Ken Rosenthal says his sources tell him that Posey was asked to do nothing, either by Strickland (who wanted a piece of Harper) or manager Bruce Bochy (who didn’t want his best player getting hurt saving an idiot relief pitcher).
• The greatest player in the game, Mike Trout, will miss the next six-to-eight weeks with surgery after tearing a ligament in his left thumb. It’s the first time Trout has ever gone on the disabled list.
• Neil Paine notes that Trout is so good that losing him for seven weeks is the equivalent of losing a “normal” star ballplayer for the whole season.
• Ben Lindbergh notes that Trout was having one of the greatest seasons of all time before he went down.
• Nicolas Stellini believes that the Angels playoff hopes just went from slim to none.
• Mike DiGiovanni thinks the rest of the team, but especially Kole Calhoun, will need to step up and keep the Angels afloat until Trout returns.
• Cliff Corcoran took the occasion of Trout’s first ever trip to the DL to look at who the top ironmen in baseball today.
• Some good news for the Angels is that Albert Pujols hit his 599th career home run off of Bartolo Colon in an Angels win over the Braves yesterday.
• One other significant injury will have Royals ace Danny Duffy miss six-to-eight weeks with a strained oblique.
• Jon Heyman reports that former Florida governor Jeb Bush has ended his quest to purchase the Marlins.
• The Red Sox are gaining in confidence with the return of David Price, writes Scott Lauber.
• Zach Kram thinks that after a slow start, the Red Sox are the team to beat in the American League again.
• Mike Lupica notes that the Rockies are showing no signs of coming back to earth. Or maybe they are, but earth is a lot higher for them.
• Rian Watt notes that Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt just keeps getting better.
• Travis Sawchik notes that Reds first baseman Joey Votto has joined the flyball revolution taking place in baseball.
• Joe Sheehan looks at some trends over the first third of the season.
• ESPN.com has a roundtable discussion of what can be learned from the current standings.
• Gary Phillips notes that Dellin Betances has proven to be worth every penny the Yankees are paying him. Also all the pennies they aren’t paying him.
• Mike Axisa looks at whom the Athletics could trade away at the deadline.
• Evan Davis examines what kind of impact the new SunTrust Stadium is having on the Braves.
• In the Midwest League, the Dayton Dragons and the West Michigan Whitecaps got in a brawl that made the Harper/Strickland fight look tame. Especially since this one had a pitcher throwing a baseball at an opponent after the fight started.
• Yasmany Tomas struck out on a pitch that hit him in a rather embarassing spot.
• And finally, don’t swing at pitches in the dirt. Unless you’re Rays outfielder Corey Dickerson, who hit a double on a ball that bounced in the dirt.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.