Jonathan Papelbon got suspended for hitting the Orioles’ Manny Machado. He got suspended again for choking his own teammate Bryce Harper.

The first incident likely had a lot to do with the second, and it sent waves through Major League Baseball, as many inexplicably defended the Nationals’ closer for attacking its star player.

Here’s how it began: In a game against the Orioles Sept. 23, Machado hit a home run off Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer to give his team the lead. Later in the game, Papelbon had a sequence of pitches that ended up with Machado being plunked and the benches clearing. After pitch one came up and in on Machado, pitch two went outside before pitch three hit Machado in the shoulder.

After the game, Harper talked about the incident and said “I’ll probably get drilled tomorrow.” What he meant was, given the not-so-secret code in baseball where pitchers will hit other teams’ players if their teammates first got plunked, it stood to reason the Orioles would likely hit Harper in retaliation for Machado’s hit-by-pitch.

It would seem Papelbon didn’t take too kindly to Harper indirectly calling him out to the media. In a game this past Sunday, Papelbon appeared to say to Harper that he should have run out a popup harder, when Harper lightly jogged to first on what was a routine out.

After making it back to the dugout, Harper and Papelbon exchanged words before Papelbon attacked Harper, choking him in the process. In the aftermath, the Nationals chose to suspend Papelbon for more games in addition to MLB’s initial suspension for hitting Machado. This effectively ended Papelbon’s season, since the total was for the remaining number of games on the regular-season schedule.

Predictably — but still ridiculously — former and current players, both publicly and privately, rushed to defend Papelbon. Let’s be clear here: They’re doing so for the main reason casual baseball fans are also defending Papelbon, in that they don’t like Harper.

Everyone knew the Nationals outfielder would be a phenom from the time he was taken No. 1 overall by the team in the 2010 draft. As of me writing this Thursday evening, Harper was hitting .331/.463/.649/1.112, so he’s a legitimate superstar a la the Angels’ Mike Trout. He also has the reputation of being full of himself, so combine that with legitimate talent, and it’s no wonder he was voted MLB’s most overrated player, which is voted upon anonymously by the players, back in March. He’s disliked by the majority of baseball, and they no doubt enjoyed seeing Papelbon lay a hand on him.

But the notion that Papelbon was somehow in the right because he taught a young player with a reputation for being cocky a lesson about running to first hard is laughable. Harper was no doubt wrong to indirectly call out Papelbon in the media following Papelbon’s plunking of Machado. Those sorts of things should be handled internally. But that doesn’t give Papelbon a reason to assault a teammate in the dugout.

Further, even if it were truly about not running hard to first, Papelbon is not the person who should be policing the Nationals to follow baseball’s unwritten rules. Acquired at the trade deadline, who is Jonathan Papelbon to tell Bryce Harper how to play the game? Harper plays every day, while Papelbon only pitches every other day. And he’s been a member of the team for just a couple of months, hardly a long enough time to give him the credibility he needs to talk down to the team’s superstar.

Make no mistake, though, the Harper haters (and there are plenty of them) will ignore all of this because Papelbon “put Harper in his place,” which they want to see. While Harper should learn to handle certain incidents internally, he has a right to show up to work not expecting to be assaulted, just like the rest of us.

Drew Kerekes is the sports editor of The Meridian Star. He can be reached at dkerekes@themeridianstar.com.