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‘I’m not waiting that long’: Bryce Harper will return on Tuesday, something only he ever imagined

Bryce Harper will return to the Phillies lineup on Tuesday, just 160 days after undergoing Tommy John surgery. (Photo by Gregory Fisher/Icon Sportswire)

LOS ANGELES — More than four hours before stepping into the batters box for Monday’s first pitch, Bryson Stott stood at the top step of the Dodger Stadium visitors dugout, leaned on a bat and looked out onto the field. He was watching the only action on said field at that particular moment: Bryce Harper, taking grounders at first base.

Harper’s done that a lot the past few weeks. But on Monday, he did so under a whole different set of circumstances.

Stott wore a slight grin on his face. It’s all one can really do at this point.

Harper will complete an unprecedented recovery on Tuesday. Officially cleared by Dr. Neal ElAttrache, Harper will return to the Phillies lineup a mere 160 days after undergoing Tommy John surgery shortly after the conclusion of the World Series.

“I call Bryce a centurion,” his agent Scott Boras told Phillies Nation. “A guy who has the skill, and he also has the drive and the passion for the game. The boy never leaves Bryce Harper, and that’s an important thing for a professional athlete.

“I remember it was the day before Thanksgiving, when he had his surgery. He goes, ‘How long is this gonna take?’ I said, ‘Normally it’s an eight month thing, minimum. August.’ [Harper goes], ‘I’m not waiting that long. May day, I’ll be back.’ I go, ‘Bryce, do not tell that to anybody. Do not say a word.’”

The Phillies, at the outset of Harper’s recovery process and all throughout it, have offered a deliberately vague timeline of “before the All-Star Break” for his return. They were right. May 2 is, indeed, before the All-Star Break.

By almost 70 days.

“It’s way ahead of schedule,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said, “but knowing the player and who he is and how hard he works — and what a great job our training staff does — it doesn’t really surprise me all that much.”

It’ll be a while before Stott might share a right side of the infield with Harper as the Phillies’ potential future first baseman. Thomson said there’s no timeline yet for Harper to significantly ramp up his throwing program, so Harper will be relegated to DH duties for the foreseeable future. (Although, if the first part of his return to action is any indication, perhaps he’ll play first base on Wednesday. Kidding, sort of.)

But even the timeline for Harper’s bat to return is something not even the best of best-case scenarios could’ve envisioned.

“I really tried to do everything I could to get to this point. It’s been a grind coming in each day … just understanding my body and how I feel and when I can push myself mentally and physically,” Harper said on Monday. “Really having an understanding of my body and how it kind of works. Pushing it when I needed to, and understanding how to back off that throttle a little bit when I needed to as well.”

Harper said that early in the offseason, he’d circled this series on the calendar as a target, for no other reason than the fact that it was the beginning of May, one month into the season. (ElAttrache is based in Los Angeles, which perhaps made this week all the more logical once the date neared.)

He credited Phillies head athletic trainer Paul Buchheit for guiding him through the recovery — knowing when to dial things up, when to rein them back in. “Without him pushing me through this process as well,” Harper said, “I don’t think I’d be sitting here ready to go.” He’ll wear the same brace on his right elbow that he wore last year, when he played through the same injury. Thomson told reporters that Harper is a full-go as far as intensity goes — sliding, headfirst sliding, swinging the same violent swing that’s earned him multiple MVP awards and a few hundred million dollars — everything.

He said last year’s experience playing through the injury helped him understand what his elbow should and shouldn’t feel like, and though things are different this time around given the surgery, it gives him a familiar baseline against which to measure.

“As of right now, I feel really, really good,” Harper said. “And I want to stay there. So, I want to keep feeling good, understanding my body, what it feels like, and just go from there.”

Thomson isn’t sure whether Harper will play every day; he said it’ll be a day-to-day conversation, noting that the Phillies have a few off days in the upcoming schedule that’ll make for somewhat of a natural progression to everyday action.

But whether he’s able to play every day or not, Harper will be another jolt for a Phillies team that’s started to turn things around in his absence over the past couple weeks. The Phillies won four straight series heading into Los Angeles. A team that started the season 1-5 will be .500 at worst come Tuesday.

Things should only get better upon the insertion of their best hitter back into the lineup.

“I think there’s excitement,” Thomson said of the mood in the clubhouse after the news came out. “I think everybody knows what a great player he is, what a great hitter he is. I think everybody’s just excited for tomorrow.”

By the way — Harper is doing this without a rehab assignment. It’s an ambitious task, especially given that last year, Harper returned from a two-month absence by making just two rehab outings with Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He tore the cover off the ball there but struggled upon his re-introduction to Major League pitching.

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He’s been taking live batting practice in Philadelphia as he’s worked his way back, which Thomson thinks will help, but there was an acknowledgement that there might be a brief adjustment period before Harper gets back into the swing of things.

“It’s not big league pitching,” Thomson said of Harper’s live BP reps. “It’s good pitching. It’s not big league pitching. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some time where it’s gonna take some time to get true timing back.”

Harper wouldn’t be surprised either. During that aforementioned early-afternoon grounders session, a voice boomed across the field at Harper from near the Dodgers’ dugout. It was Dave Roberts, politely requesting that Harper sit out an extra three days before returning.

Roberts was quickly reassured.

“I’m gonna suck for two days,” Harper yelled back. “I’m gonna be absolutely terrible.”

So be it. The Phillies offense wants to give him time to be, well, absolutely terrible. Asked by Phillies Nation whether Harper’s return takes some of the burden off the rest of the lineup, Nick Castellanos said the approach is actually somewhat the opposite.

“We’re extremely happy to have him back,” Castellanos said. “And now, you know, I think the message that we all have for him is just relax and get settled in. You know?

“In the beginning, we just want to take the load off of him. We want him to feel comfortable and give him time to just get acclimated and playing baseball again. It was a serious procedure he went through, and you know, to be able to come back as early as he has, the only thing us as a team want him to focus on is just finding that peace in the game again.”

Whether he’s absolutely terrible or not, the fact that he’ll even be in the lineup is impressive enough.