Texarkana Gazette

Harper has bone bruise, Nats hopeful he’s back this season

- By Stephen Whyno

WASHINGTON—When Bryce Harper writhed in pain on the field and clutched at his left knee and then didn’t put weight on his left leg as he was helped off, the possibilit­y of a career-altering injury seemed realistic.

Harper was definitely worried.

“Of course you’re going to think the worst,” he said. “It’s definitely a bad feeling.”

That bad feeling subsided as Harper walked up the stairs from the dugout to the clubhouse, tested his knee by jumping up and down and then got the MRI results that revealed what the Washington Nationals hope is season-saving news. General manager Mike Rizzo said Harper has a “significan­t” bone bruise in his left knee but avoided the kind of ligament or tendon damage that would have put a pin in the team’s World Series aspiration­s.

There’s no definitive timeline for Harper to return, but manager Dusty Baker referenced 10 days to two weeks. At the very least the Nationals are hopeful the star outfielder and NL MVP candidate will be back before the end of the season.

“It was definitely a relief,” Harper said Sunday. “We’re going to take some time to definitely let it heal. I want to be at 100 percent whenever I play. The World Series is definitely on my mind, playoffs, things like that.”

Rizzo said the Nationals feel they “dodged a bullet” but didn’t want to undersell the significan­ce of the bone bruise, which came when Harper hyperexten­ded his knee slipping on a wet base in the first inning of a rain-delayed game against the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night.

“The bone bruise, it’s real,” Rizzo said. “It’s an injury, and we’re going to have to treat it accordingl­y.”

Rizzo said the conditions, which included steady rain during the play “aided” in the injury but didn’t blame Major League Baseball for going ahead with the game. Harper was upset about playing in the rain at 10 p.m. but called it a “freak accident.”

“I don’t like wet bases,” Harper said. “It’s just an unfortunat­e situation that happened. There’s nothing I can do.”

Harper, the 2015 MVP, is hitting .326 with 29 home runs and 87 RBIs in 106 games this season, and his presence in the lineup is crucial to Washington playing deep into October.

The Nationals running away with the NL East gives them the luxury of playing it safe with Harper. Given injuries to Harper, Stephen Strasburg—who has a rehab assignment Monday—and others, the Nationals’ focus is getting healthy for the playoffs.

“We don’t know how long he’s going to be out, but he will be back before the end of the season,” Baker said. “We expect him to be back for the stretch drive and be healthy. That’s what we want.”

This fall is especially important considerin­g Harper can be a free agent after the 2018 season, crystalliz­ing Washington’s championsh­ip window with Max Scherzer in his prime and a lineup built with power around the 29-year-old face of the franchise, Daniel Murphy, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon and Ryan Zimmerman. Even injuries to Strasburg, Turner, Jayson Werth and more haven’t hurt the Nationals yet because of their organizati­onal depth.

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