Hot in the clutch
Big-money slugger Harper has delivered when it matters most
It’s OK if you don’t like Bryce Harper, but it might not be the smartest thing to heckle him if you’re sitting behind the dugout.
Last week, a fan’s video went viral after he heckled Harper an at-bat before his walk-off grand slam. On Wednesday night, Harper homered to beat the Red Sox after Gabe Kapler said a group of Fenway Park fans were busting Harper’s chops all night.
Harper’s been booed at every ballpark the Phillies have visited this season. Wednesday night was nothing new for him. And neither was the way he responded. The Phillies won a series at Fenway for the first time in 20 years and they flew to Miami with some momentum, but can they finally take advantage of the Marlins?
When the Phillies signed Harper, they dreamed of moments like last week’s walk-off grand slam. Yes, they knew Harper would boost ticket sales and help the team’s store run out of Phillie Phanatic headbands. But they also expected him to come through on the field — such as Wednesday night’s go-ahead homer — when it mattered most. So far, Harper has delivered.
Harper leads all major-league hitters in “clutch,” a stat that measures how a player performs in high-leverage situations by using both win-probability added and leverage index. Harper’s clutch rating after his two-run homer to beat the Sox on Wednesday increased to 2.16. The next best hitter — interestingly, Jean Segura — has a 1.49 mark. The league average is zero and anything better than 2.0 is “excellent,” according to FanGraphs.
Harper said he loves the game’s biggest moments. He touched his chest before last week’s grand slam and noticed that his heart was beating normally, just as he expected. His success in the clutch comes from his ability to stay calm.
“I think like us mortals, I wish I could do that,” manager Gabe Kapler said a day after Harper’s grand slam stunned the Cubs. “He really did look like that last night. So once he hit the home run and once he’s circling the bases, it felt like he knew how big that moment was and he was going to include everyone else, inside the ballpark, outside the ballpark, his teammates, coaches. Everybody was going to get included in that celebration, and he was going to make everybody feel like they were the most important person. And he executed that beautifully.”
Harper’s win-probability added — which accounts for the change in a team’s win expectancy based on a single at-bat — is the highest in baseball since the All-Star break and trails only Mike Trout and Christian Yelich for the season. The Red Sox had a 62.8% win expectancy when Harper stepped to the plate in the fifth inning. His homer over the Green Monster changed that to just 39.5 percent, thus increasing his win-probability added.
And it might have been easy for Harper to lose his composure before that swing. Kapler said a group of fans at Fenway Park was riding the Phillies’ $330 million superstar. Kapler declined to say what the hecklers were yelling, but Harper silenced them by coming through yet again in the clutch.
“That was a pretty explosive moment for the dugout celebration,” Kapler said. “I’m really happy for Bryce to be able to come up big in that moment.”