With a mighty payoff, Harper reveals his worth
PHILADELPHIA >> You can spend months wondering about and waiting for the payoff by the uncommon sports superstar. In this case, it’s a 26-year-old baseball player, who plays the game he grew up loving better than almost all the rest and occasionally has it love him back with more than just an astounding financial reward.
It cost John Middleton and his Phillies ownership partners an awful lot of money to bring someone like that to Philadelphia, but Bryce Harper showed Thursday night what such an investment can profoundly produce.
In a game unlike any other in recent Phillies memory, the home team put together an astounding late-inning comeback against an alleged World Series contender, the Chicago Cubs. Capitalizing when it counted on a mistake by Cubs manager Joe Maddon, doggedly ignoring a five-run hole, the Phillies finally were allowed to experience ultimate joy at the crack of Harper’s bat.
Having fought back from a two-strike hole, he turned on a high, 2-2 sinker that didn’t sink, at least not until after Harper belted it into the second deck in right field at Citizens Bank Park. Home run.
Grand slam. Six-run ninth-inning. Walk-off victory. Season turnaround? “Bryce is remarkable in moments like these. He’s built for them,” manager Gabe Kapler said after a stunning 7-5 Phillies victory brought them a sweep of the Cubs and perhaps a renewed lease on their playoff lives.
“That’s it. That’s why you sign one of the best players in baseball, and why you spend so much time and energy trying to get him to come to Philadelphia,” Kapler added. “Bryce ultimately deserves all the credit for having ice water in his veins in that moment and staying relaxed. It was really fun to watch. But as enjoyable as watching the home run was, watching guys embrace and watching guys celebrate together — because they fight so hard just to get an opportunity to have a moment like that — for it actually to come to fruition, a walkoff grand slam against the Cubs in a playoff race? It was as dramatic a game as I’ve been a part of.”
Don’t discount that as only so much managerspeak, for Kapler the player was a member of the 2004 Boston Red Sox, who had to and did win Games 4 through 7 against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series that year, before sweeping the Cardinals for a World Series title.
Perhaps living that experience defined for a younger Kapler the ultimate never-say-die lesson. Maybe it instilled the seemingly constant sense of positive enthusiasm and motivation with which he steels himself on a daily basis.
And maybe he just knows that if all else fails, he still has Harper. And so the possibilities are endless, even when the situation seems dire and the pressure multiplied.
“I love it,” Harper said. “I think before I went up to the plate, I touched my heart a little and wondered, ‘Why am I not jittery, or excited or whatever it is?’ But that’s just how I am. I go up there, each at-bat is the same. I don’t really worry about bases loaded or a guy on first or anything like that. I just try to get a pitch over the plate I can handle and drive and hopefully good things will happen.”
Despite criticism over his batting average or his league-leading strikeout total, the Phillies’
$330,000,000 man has produced a lot of good moments. He seeks more.
“It’s a new day,” Harper said. “We’ll just try to do our job and do the best we can. But (Friday), it’s a new day . ... We have to go out there and try to win the series against San Diego and do our job.”
This monumental home run was his third in two nights, 25th of the season, and has his RBI total up to
87. It was his sixth career walk-off homer, the last coming against the Phillies in 2017.
“I just love those moments,” Harper said of all the times the spotlight tries to cook him. “I love those opportunities. I think it’s helped me a lot from a young age, going through those moments and having those opportunities at 8, 9 or 10 years old in big-time games. Going to different states and cities and playing for different teams with guys I didn’t know, and with expectations and things like that, I just love it.”
Especially when he emerges from them as triumphant as any superstar should be.
“These fans do expect that and I expect to do that for them on a nightly basis,” Harper said, “and if I don’t, they’re going to let me know it. And I like that, too.”
Harper was so ignited by this latest manifestation of baseball majesty that at first he couldn’t help but stand and admire. Or so it seemed.
“I watched it for a minute just to make sure it was fair,” Harper said. But of course, it didn’t seem fair, at least not for Cubs starter Yu Darvish, who had tantalized the flailing Phillies for seven innings before Maddon decided his starter had enough after 92 pitches. Really?
“He was done,” Maddon responded.
But Harper wasn’t. He started toward the plate after Rhys Hoskins had been hit by a pitch from reliever Pedro Strop, the Cubs’ third reliever and second of the inning. As Maddon came out to bring in reliever No. 4, lefty Derek Holland, Harper checked his heart and absorbed the moment.
The opportunity. The event that would reveal to fans, teammates and the paycheck signers what bringing a superstar to town can occasionally and profoundly produce.
Moments of thrill unlike any other.
But does a game likes bode well for more thrills to come? Maybe in the aftermath of such a victory, no matter how much of the season has gone for the Phillies, it was easy to be positive.
“I certainly think it can provide a lot of momentum for us,” Kapler said. “We’ll try to use the energy of tonight and have it spill into tomorrow, and at the same time we know we have a job to do.”