In addition to the seven-game suspension he’s already received for (allegedly) throwing a ball at a Phillies fan (which is still pending an appeal), Nationals centerfielder Nyjer Morgan has received an additional eight-game suspension for Wednesday night’s slapfight.

We wondered out loud the other day about the state of Nyjer Morgan’s head. He’s getting into tiffs with Philly fans (although that’s fairly easy to do). He missed the plate while trying to bowl over the Cardinals’ catcher while the Nats were up by six runs over the weekend. We thought that the subsequent benching and the move down the order would settle things down a bit. We thought way wrong.

August 21, 2010, for purposes of sheer hyperbole, is that the date that it happened: The “Forearm Twinge Heard ‘Round the World.” Games don’t get cancelled because your stud prospect gets a boo-boo, but the Nationals seemed to forget that in the four games afterward, getting outscored 24-5 and looking about as qualified to play professional baseball as I am.

We thought that the pain caused by the loss of Nyjer Morgan to the disabled list would be more than compensated for by an emerging Roger Bernadina, who went 4-for-8 in two starts at the top of the order in the Arizona series. However, manager Jim Riggleman, who clearly favors unnecessary platoons over any chance at establishing consistency, thought that Bernadina would be at a disadvantage going against left-handed starters (Clayton Kershaw and Ted Lilly) in the Dodgers series and started the right-handed-hitting, underperforming Justin Maxwell in center instead.

Last year, Nyjer Morgan fractured his hand on August 27th, ending his season. The Nationals went on to lose 10 of the next 11 games. Fast-forward to the present day, where Morgan is again on the disabled list with a strained hip flexor, a decision with which he is apparently none too pleased.

The Nationals’ Nyjer Morgan probably thought he’d get credit for an athletic move to nab a flyout by Angel Pagan in the sixth inning. No such luck, courtesy of SB Nation, who have taken this AP photo by Kathy Willens and turned it into a meme. Poor bastard. Click over to the full thread to see Photoshop- and MS Paint-enabled nerds do awful, awful things to Morgan; see below the fold for a selection…