Both players will appeal the decision, meaning both will remain active Tuesday night.

“You never know what Major League Baseball is going to do, or the [MLB] Players Association, or things like that,” Harper said. “It’s always in their hands, so there’s nothing the players can do about what’s fair, what’s not fair … just going to appeal that four games and see what happens.”

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The four games given to Harper, assuming they stand on appeal, represent a moderate punishment relative to those doled out for similar fighting incidents. The longest suspension given for fighting is 10 games. Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor received an eight-game suspension after he landed a punch against Blue Jays’ slugger Jose Bautista last season. In other words, MLB did not come down particularly harshly on Harper, though it did not take it easy, either.

The 24-year-old was in good spirits Tuesday afternoon, noticeably calm, and downplayed the punishment, still consumed by disbelief.

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“I was sitting there talking to my parents this morning at breakfast. It’s just crazy that it even happened yesterday. After three years, to do that, I don’t know what was going through his mind or how upset he was the last couple years,” Harper said. “If he did have a problem, he could’ve talked to me in BP about it and say: ‘I didn’t like the way you went about it.’ But that’s not human nature, I guess. I don’t know, it’s just part of the game, I guess. It’s just a crazy situation. I can’t believe it happened.”

That Strickland got more games than Harper pleased the Nationals, who were outspoken and adamant that Strickland, whose long-held grudge sparked the conflict, should receive a harsher penalty. But when one considers Strickland’s normal workload — at most, he probably would pitch in three or four of those six games — compared with Harper’s, the relative severity flips. The Giants will lose a reliever for about three innings of work. The Nationals will lose their No. 3 hitter and MVP candidate for about 36 innings, should the suspension stand on appeal.

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Asked whether or not he thought the suspensions were fair, Nationals Manager Dusty Baker said he did not.

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“The whole act wasn’t fair. But it doesn’t matter what I say or what I do. I just don’t think that the judges, whoever the judges were, have ever been in the situation,” Baker said. “Probably only Martin Luther King [Jr.] or Ghandi would have turned the other cheek and not done something reactionary”

The appeal process can take days, meaning Harper likely will be able to play through the duration of this week’s series against the Giants, and perhaps through this weekend’s series against the Athletics, too. For now, he is available, pending another decision from the league, which issued its first ruling on the matter Tuesday.