Bryce Harper's World Series homer sets tone for Phillies vs. Astros

PHILADELPHIA – The Phillies keep seeing it, time and time again, but somehow it’s more mind boggling through the game.

They are out of words, no more ways to describe Bryce Harper.

“I’m running out of things to say about the man,” Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins said Tuesday night. ‘I don’t think you can write anything better. He is the most talented player I have ever played with. It’s really cool to see him being The Guy. We’re used to seeing him as The Guy.

“But it’s cool to see him be The Guy on the biggest baseball stage.”

The Phillies hit a World Series-record five home runs, totaling 600 feet, by beating the Houston Astros 7-0 in the franchise’s most lopsided shutout win in World Series history.

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Never before in World Series history had a team hit three homeruns in the first two innings of a game.

Never before in World Series history had a team hit five homeruns in the first five innings of a game.

Never before in World Series history had a team hit five home runs against a single pitcher, Astros-starter Lance McCullers.

But never before had the World Series ever had Bryce Harper, and he’s been putting on a show for centuries this postseason, hitting .382 with six home runs, 13 RBI with an insane 1,232 OPS.

Harper may have hit only one of the five home runs, but none were bigger, as the Phillies kept telling everyone in their clubhouse late into the night.

“He just powered the whole building,” said Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm.

Harper hit one of the most famous home runs in Philadelphia history last week to send the Phillies to the World Series, and with his first swing of the bat this night, he hit a first-inning, two-run homer that got 45,712 fans screaming. the night.

The Phillies led 2-0 after the first inning on the homerun by Harper, 4-0 after the second inning on the homeruns by Bohm and Brandon Marsh and 7-0 after the fifth inning on homeruns by Kyle Schwarber and Hoskins.

“It was Bryce who set the tone with that first punch,” said Hoskins, who also has six home runs for the Phillies this postseason with his attack in the fifth inning. “It was insane. I think it lasted [the fans] until the eighth inning before they sat down.”

The man who wrote out Harper’s salary and gave him a 13-year franchise record four years ago, $330 million, never sat down.

“He’s the most underpaid man in the world at $330 million,” owner John Middleton told USA TODAY Sports. “He really is. What he does is incredible. He’s a special player. A very special player.

“He is showing everyone what he is this postseason. He is a multi-generational talent. He’s doing everything he can to help us get that World Series trophy.

“And I want that [expletive] trophy back.”

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It’s been 14 years since the Phillies were World Series champions, with just two titles in the last 42 years, but here they are, just two wins away from the championship by a surprising 2 games to 1 lead over the much loved. Astros .

Maybe there really is something magical going on with this team. How else can you explain that a team that started on 22-29 and finished third in the NL East was the last team to reach the postseason just because of the extended playoffs, now the world is shocking?

“I think we kind of knew what we had all year and we felt good about our team,” said Bohm, who homered after getting a tip from Harper. some experience. So we have to have faith.

“I think the more you show that you belong in these situations, I think the confidence will naturally grow.”

And no one is more confident these days than Harper.

“Bryce is probably one of the best examples of anyone in the league,” said Bohm, “of how to show up and play the game. So just being in the dugout with him, watching him, being on the field with him, he’s always showing you how. So he doesn’t have to say much. But he always tries to help that hand and make the team better.

“I think just the example he sets every day makes him the leader he is.”

It was Harper’s stroke that sent McCullers curveball 402 feet into the night into the right midfield grandstand, which sent McCullers pirouette up the mound.

“It was crazy, one throw, boom!” said Middleton. “As soon as he hit it, I knew it was gone. It’s crazy. … But for Bryce to open such a game, 2-0, three batters in, that’s pretty special. It lights up the place. Light up the couch. Really gets everyone going. That’s very special, wow.”

McCullers never recovered. He faced 16 more batters, gave up homeruns to four and was out of the game after 4⅓ inning.

“Bryce Harper has had a star to his name since playing baseball,” McCullers said. “It was a bad pitch. I said to myself before the at bat, ‘Don’t let him beat you here.’

There were many conjectures and theories that McCullers tipped his pitches. He gave up only one homer to a lefthanded batter all season. He gave up three of nine at bats to lefthanders, threw 34 pitches and generated only one swing-and-miss.

It was as if the Phillies knew exactly what was coming, a legal version of tick theft.

“I’m not going to sit here and say something like that,” McCullers said. “I got a cry. End of story.”

But oh, what was it the last chapter of the legend of Harper.

This is a man who underwent surgery to repair his broken thumb after being hit on June 25 by a pitch thrown by San Diego Padres starter Blake Snell. He came back two months later, just in time to help the Phillies into the postseason for the first time since 2011, and now he carries the franchise on his back.

While the Phillies took advantage of the new collective bargaining agreement to add one more wildcard team in every league, no new rule has helped them more than the National League in adopting the DH rule. If Harper couldn’t be a DH, he would be relegated to the bench and not be able to play on the field until next season.

“I’ve always been against it,” Middleton said. “In March 2021, Dave [Dombrowski, president of baseball operations] asked me what I thought of the DH. I said to him, ‘Dave, I’m against it. It’s part of the game. Pitcher’s bat. It’s part of the strategy of the game.”

Dombrowski, who tried to persuade Middleton to change his mind since National League owners would have to approve the DH, told him that two of their pitchers hurt their backs during spring practice simply by practicing hitting.

‘He said, ‘Maybe you want to reconsider your position?’ I said, ‘Really, that’s how they got hurt.’ So I said, ‘Okay, I’m for the DH.’

“So I turned a conversation around for about four minutes.

“I think DH worked out pretty well for us.”

Yes, as the entire city of Philadelphia and frenzied sold-out crowds will tell you, this DH performance fits in quite nicely with their World Series title dreams.

“We’re all family here, man,” Harper said. “We’re all trying to get in here and play the best baseball we can, knowing we’ve got a whole city behind us. This whole city is so excited to be right now. We love playing for them , to have this chance and just be there. …

“We know there’s going to be 46,000 people here screaming and screaming and going crazy.”

Who knows, as Harper and the Phillies do these days, the fun may just begin.

Follow Nightengale on Twitter: @Bnightengale

Bryce Harper’s World Series homer sets tone for Phillies vs. Astros

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