HOUSTON — Bryce Harper’s game-winning two-run home run against Robert Suarez in Game 5 of the 2022 National League Championship Series is the defining moment of his career. Within the next 20 years or so, there will come a time where baseball writers get together and agree that he’s worthy of enshrinement into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The home run will prominently be featured in a video montage that tells the story of his baseball life. Like all the elite hitters in the history of baseball, Harper’s greatness is defined by what happens when he puts the ball in play.
However, to fully understand just how great he is, you have to appreciate the swings he doesn’t take.
Nobody — absolutely nobody — in the game right now has a better feel for the strike zone than Harper. Absolutely nobody is better at making adjustments within an at-bat than Harper. The best example of this came one pitch before Harper’s heroic swing.
He was in a 1-2 count against the unflappable Suárez and just fouled off three straight fastballs on the outer half. It was time for Suárez to challenge Harper with his best secondary pitch: the changeup.
Left handed batters hit .103 against the pitch during the regular season. Suárez tried to put the previous hitter J.T. Realmuto away with a changeup, but it stayed in the zone and Realmuto was able to get the barrel across for a base hit. Harper saw the pitch in an at-bat against Suárez in Game 2, where he laid it off in the dirt for ball one.
The 1-2 changeup was perfectly executed. It was a strike the entire time until it wasn’t. Harper barely flinched.
It was a signature Harper take that signaled something spectacular could happen. He’s just that locked in.
“Once he took that changeup, I was like ‘We’re sitting pretty good here,'” Rhys Hoskins said.
How the heck did Harper lay off on that pitch? A few of his Phillies teammates could not explain.
“It’s almost like he just watched it go by and — not even a problem,” said Matt Vierling.
“I have no idea,” Bryson Stott said.
“How does he take it? Because he’s the best,” said Hoskins.
Harper told hitting coach Kevin Long that he saw the spin early and thought it looked like a two-seam fastball.
Unless Suárez wanted to get to 3-2, Harper was not getting another changeup in the at-bat. Instead, the right hander threw another outside fastball. This one drifted too far in on the plate and caught the barrel.
“You obviously don’t know what’s going to happen, but him taking his best secondary pitch to a left hander as easy as he did, I was like ‘This ball is gonna go somewhere hard,'” Hoskins said.
Sometimes, the outcome does not match the at-bat. The six pitches that proceeded Harper’s moment of “bedlam” was artistry and the end result was one of the greatest moments in Phillies history.
So how did this poetic version of Bryce emerge at the perfect time? There were real concerns that Harper’s struggles post thumb injury would drag into the postseason. He finished the final month of the regular season with a .615 OPS. His timing and pitch recognition still needed some working.
His teammate Vierling cleverly pointed out a Harper at-bat where he believed things began to turn around for the superstar slugger.
With nobody out and a runner on first, Harper stepped in to face Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the National League Wild Card Series. He fell behind 1-2 and came back to work out a walk against the Cardinals reliever. The inning was about to implode for St. Louis. Harper could have sunk the Phillies’ chances with an ill-advised swing that led to a double play or a strikeout but that’s not what happened.
The Phillies went on to score six and steal Game 1. Harper wasn’t the star of the comeback that ignited the Phillies postseason run, but he was the driving force.
“He kind of changed his stance. Instead of going super spread out, he kind of just shortened up in the stance and just looked so relaxed,” Vierling said. “And I remember telling him, I was like, ‘Dude, you look so calm.’ That whole at-bat. In the biggest at-bat of the year, he looked so calm, and ever since then, he’s looked so good.”
Good big league hitters are lucky to have one way of doing things well. Harper can shorten up, add a toe tap, relax the bat on his shoulders, spread out or even ditch the batting gloves. Whatever way he chooses, it works. Teammates are in awe of that.
“I think what’s been so cool about what he’s done this year – and he’s done it less in October. I’m guessing just because he’s so locked in, but when he doesn’t feel good, you can see him changing his stance and setup around, but he’s still not getting out, right?” Hoskins said. “He’ll take the no stride super wide. A base hit over there. Or he’ll toe tap. He just has so many different clubs in this bag.
“So that when he steps in the box, he feels comfortable. It’s impressive. It’s hard enough to have one swing, one setup, one way that you do your thing in there. This guy seemingly has four or five or six different ways that he feels so comfortable and dangerous in there that it’s like he’s decided — he’s like ‘Alright, like, you beat me there on that pitch but I want to do something right here to make sure that I don’t get beat again.'”
Is this the perfect version of Bryce? The one who does all the little things right but also comes up with the big hit? For Hoskins and Vierling, it’s hard to say because they did get a good view of his second-half dominance in Harper’s MVP season. For Long, who was not with the Phillies last season, but had Harper for one season in Washington in 2018, this is the best he’s seen of him when it comes to pitch recognition and adjustments made mid at-bat.
“I’ll tell you what, this postseason? Yeah, it’s the best I’ve ever seen it,” Long said. “I mean, it’s just his ability on any pitch. Any part of the zone up, down, in, out. He’s just locked in. He’s taking a tight, compact, explosive swing on anything that’s over the plate. So, at this point, I’d say it’s pretty special.”
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