“Stare downs aren’t an official stat (yet!), but we’re all in awe of Harper over here.”—The Elias Sports Bureau.
Memo to: Atlanta Braves, particularly shortstop Orlando Arcia. Subject: Poking the Philadelphia bear. Dear Braves; dear Orlando: just. don’t. do it. For real or allegedly.
Because the Philadelphia bear, whose human name is Bryce Harper, is liable to do to you what Yogi Bear only dreamed of doing with the contents of picnic baskets. He’s also liable to inspire similar destruction by his mates while he’s at it. And that Citizens Bank Park crowd in Philadelphia won’t let you live it down.
Whether Arcia really cracked “ha ha, attaboy, Harper” Monday—after Harper was doubled up by a hair to end National League division series Game Two, having rounded second on a long fly that looked as much like an extra base hit as an out before Michael Harris II’s stupefying catch—might have been speculative alone.
But it appeared in print, as you might expect when there might be three to five times more reporters in a postseason clubhouse than a regular season one. As Phillies manager Rob Thomson said Wednesday, after Harper and company demolished the Braves, 10-2, “If that adds to his motivation, then thank you.”
Affirming that the Monday mockery did indeed come from his postgame mouth, Arcia told reporters after Game Three, “He wasn’t supposed to hear.” Whether he meant Harper or the reporter(s) who put it into print wasn’t entirely clear, and hardly mattered. It wasn’t wise to poke a bear who had the entire Show’s second highest win probability added factor this year.
Harper swore he heard of Arcia’s trash talking from teammates. “They looked at me,” he said, “and they were like, ‘What are you going to do?’” It wouldn’t take too long before they got their answer.
With the game tied at one following Nick Castellanos’s leadoff bomb in the bottom of the third, Brandon Marsh singled promptly and Trea Turner pushed him to third beating out an infield single against Braves starter Bryce Elder, who can be a good pitcher but who’d spent the season’s second half struggling heavily.
Up stepped Harper. He took two low and away pitches after fouling off the first. Then, he ripped a hanging slider into the second deck behind right field. Rounding second, Harper gave Arcia a stare that would have meant a death sentence had it come from a Mafia caporegime.
“Stare downs aren’t an official stat (yet!),” Xtweeted the Elias Sports Bureau, “but we’re all in awe of Harper over here.”
The demolition that followed—including a second Harper homer—could be considered the Braves’ death sentence, depending upon how well they regroup and recoup behind Game One starter Spencer Strider on Thursday. And, whether Strider himself can handle the Phillies a little better than he had (eight strikeouts but two runs including a Harper smash) in Game One.
After Monday’s Braves one-run win, preserved by Harris’s acrobatic catch and third baseman Austin Riley’s swift throw across to nip Harper by a step and a half to finish the unlikely double play, Castellanos didn’t sound too worried. “We thrive after we get punched in the face,” he said.
Thrive? How about feeding frenzy. Right after Harper unloaded, Alec Bohm shot a base hit into left, Bryson Stott walked, and J.T. Realmuto pumped a two-run double to the back of left field. And every Braves fan in the nation probably asked why manager Brian Snitker—who started Elder with no better options available for this game—didn’t have anyone up in the pen yet.
“I thought maybe he would go five,” Snitker said of Elder, whose first two innings were deceptively masterful with six-up, six-down including four strikeouts, and who had a one-run lead after Ozzie Albies singled Ronald Acuña, Jr. (one-out double) home in the top of the third. “The way Bryce was throwing, I was thinking, ‘Man, he was really good.’ The slider was good. The changeup was good. It was the third inning of the game, with a lot to cover on the back end of it.”
It turned out the Braves had to find ways to cover a five-run Phillies lead after the bottom of the third’s demolition finally ended. But two innings later, leading off against veteran Brad Hand, the third Braves reliever of the day, Harper launched one parabolically over the center field fence. And gave Arcia a second stare down rounding second while he was at it.
Arcia extracted his own ounce of flesh when he singled Marcel Ozuna (one-out single) home against Phillies reliever Matt Strahm with two out in the top of the sixth. That’d teach him further. With two out in the bottom of that inning, Trea Turner shot one over the left center field fence off AJ Smith-Shawver, the fourth Braves pitcher on the night. Smith-Shawver endured long enough for Castellanos and Marsh to greet him rudely opening the bottom of the eighth with back-to-back solo bombs into the real estate Turner had reached.
Nothing—not even Phillies starter Aaron Nola’s nine-strikeout, five-and-two-thirds innings work, which somehow got pushed well into the background thanks to their offensive mayhem—quite equaled the magnitude of Harper’s first blast in the third, but when he hit the second in the fifth, he pushed himself into extremely elite territory—and pushed Hall of Famer in waiting Albert Pujols out of it.
Pujols was fifth in postseason OPS among men with at least 150 postseason plate appearances with .995; Harper shot his way past Pujols with what’s now 1.011. Ahead of him, in ascending order: Carlos Beltrán (1.021) and Hall of Famers George Brett (1.023), Babe Ruth (1.214), and Lou Gehrig (1.214). Harper also has a 1.132 OPS in this postseason alone thus far.
According to the reboutable MLB analyst Sarah Langs, Harper has also homered in eight postseason games since becoming a Phillie—and the team’s 8-0 in those games. Tying Harper with a longtime Brave, Javy Lopez, for the longest such postseason streak ever for a player starting his career with a particular team . . . but the longest for any player with a new team.
And what about this year’s Atlanta threshing machine, the team who smashed a record 307 home runs on the regular season and led the National League in runs, hits, team batting average, team on-base percentage, team slugging, and team OPS? Entering Game Three, the Braves were out-scored 7-5 while posting a team 150/.215/.250 slash line and a .465 OPS.
Now, the Braves are out-scored 15-9 for the set. They’ll need more than Strider being Strider on the mound this time, though the Phillies found ways to beat him in two prior postseason chances. (Last year, they sliced him for four runs in two and a third, charging a fifth to him when Harper—who else?—hit one over the right center field fence off Strider’s relief Dylan Lee with J.T. Realmuto aboard before Strider left the game.)
The Braves need their bats to find ways around scheduled Phillies Game Four starter Ranger Suárez and a better-positioned Phillies bullpen. They need Acuña to hit truly like the 40/70 player he was on the season. They need Snitker to do better in the bullpen management department.
Mostly, they need to find ways to keep Harper from Harpering. They also need to remind themselves that not even Harper takes them for granted.
“We know they’re really good, and they’re not going to fall down or die or anything like that,” Harper said after Game Three. “They’re a really, really good organization, a really good team, and we’ve seen that all year from them. But we have a crowd that’s 45 (thousand) strong, and we’re very excited to go into tomorrow and play a great game.”
If the Phillies are that excited, the Braves might be in more trouble than even Game Three made them look.
Throneberry Fields Forever 