MercuryNews- Hunter Strickland did something really dumb on Monday night.
After blowing his fourth save of the season — and making a big huff as he walked off the field — the Giants’ closer decided to keep the party going in the clubhouse by punching a door and broking his hand. Now the Giants’ closer is out six to eight weeks. It’s a blow to a San Francisco team that has spent the season on the brink, fighting bad injury luck and bad play to stay in the hunt for a playoff spot this year. -------- What I don't want to do here is downplay how much of a dumb-dumb someone as important to a baseball team as the closer has to be to open up a can of whoop-ass on an unforgiving and inanimate object while his team is clinging hopelessly to the outer frame of the playoff picture. No matter how infuriated Hunter Strickland was with his efforts, there's no legitimate excuse for him not to have been a little more prudent in punishing himself via pain. If you absolutely have to destruct property as a disgruntled pitcher then, at the very least, you need to be smart enough to summon the most baseline number of braincells in using your off-hand to do so. Fun fact: Frustration flows just as well through the left arm as it does the right. Therefore, even if he needed to violently let off some steam, it was wildly unnecessary for him to put the limb responsible for his paycheck in peril simply because it packs a more powerful punch. All that aside, Hunter Strickland, much like every other professional athlete that has hurt both himself and his team by getting recklessly enraged (LeBron James, Amar'e Stoudemire, etc. etc.), gets paid millions of dollars to perform at the height of competition. Is it too much to ask of franchises whose fate hangs from the broadest of shoulder blades to insure themselves by providing their players with an outlet for their anger? It will never not be excessively stupid to punch something solid because you are pissed off, but since when did we start requiring unflappable intelligence out of people whose jobs are dependent on a chemical imbalance of competitiveness and the exertion of brute strength? Again, I want to make it clear that I'm not blaming the door here. Still, have we not seen more than enough moronic injuries to consider a locker room punching bag to be a worthwhile investment for any organization that's truly committed to creating an idiot-proof environment for their players? Given the daily rigors of professional sports, I can almost guaranteed that it would be of more productive use than a vast majority of amenities that currently reside in clubhouses. The hardest battle to fight might be the one within, but - since you can't win them all - why not save athletes from themselves by offering them the lifeline of a guarantee draw?
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