Broken-bat homer for Nationals’ Bryce Harper

This was shear power by Bryce Harper. In a startling display, the Washington Nationals slugger shattered his bat into two pieces, yet still hit a long home run Monday night in an 8-6 win over the New York Mets.

“Barrelled it pretty good,” Harper said. “It just broke and kept going.”

Harper hit his major league-high eighth homer, and his 33 1/2-inch, 31 1/2-ounce Marucci bat paid the price. It cleanly cracked, but the ball flew an estimated 406 feet to rightcentre at Citi Field.

The lumber split just above his hands, and the barrel helicoptered into the high, protective netting behind home plate on the first base side. The five-time All-Star trotted most of the way to first holding the few inches of the handle that remained after tagging a 95 mph fastball from Jacob deGrom.

Mets right fielder Brandon Nimmo headed toward the wall and quickly ran out of room.

“Yeah, that was pretty shocking,” deGrom said, with a slight grin. “I heard the bat break and then I looked, I saw Nimmo, he just kept going so I was like, oh, well, I guess that’s out of here.”