A retaliatory story in nine bullet points:

• Luis Valbuena flipped his bat after a home run.

• Mike Fiers didn’t like it.
• Fiers threw a pitch several feet over Valbuena’s head the next time he batted.

• Fiers got suspended five games for it.
• Fiers should have better things to care about in the modern game than an exuberant home run hitter.
• Such as his 5.22 ERA, which, let’s face it, is enough to make anybody ornery.
• The umpires were hasty in issuing warnings following Fiers’ purpose pitch, which precluded the Angels from responding.
• Not that the Angels had much to respond to, since Fiers clearly wasn’t trying to hurt Valbuena so much as put his own cranky pants on display.
• Which calls his suspension into question, since drilling the hitter was never part of his intent.

Also: Valbuena keeps on flipping. Were it not for the preceding kerfuffle, it would not even be noteworthy. It’s 2017, the Era of Puig. Time to move on.