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Phillies insist Bryce Harper is healthy amid slow start

Bryce Harper is off to a slow start in 2024. (Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire)

Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper homered three times and drove in six runs in a win over the Cincinnati Reds on April 2. In the two-time NL MVP’s other 54 at-bats this season, he has just eight hits, zero home runs, a lone RBI and 16 strikeouts.

But even after Harper went just 2-for-16 in a four-game series split against the Pittsburgh Pirates, manager Rob Thomson insisted that the seven-time All-Star is fine physically.

“Yeah, he’s just frustrated,” Thomson said. “He’s just trying to do too much I think right now. He’s maybe over-swinging a little bit. His contact point isn’t exactly where he usually has it. So, he’s just gotta play through it.”

Harper missed close to 10 days late in Spring Training as he dealt with some lower back stiffness. But the fine defensive work he’s turned in at first base, mixed with the three home run game he had in the first homestand lead you to believe that he is indeed in a good place physically. If he wasn’t, why would the Phillies and him push things so early in the season?

It should also be pointed out that Harper is due for some positive regression offensively, as he’s had multiple excellent defensive plays go against him early in the season. Entering the day, Harper’s batting average on balls in play was .229. That’s well below the league average of “around .300,”

and more than a 100-point dip from the .352 BABIP he posted a season ago. He’s hit into bad luck early on, and things like that tend to even out over the course of a 162-game season.

The 4-12 Colorado Rockies will come to town Monday for a three-game series at Citizens Bank Park. Perhaps a visit by one of the league’s doormat franchises will be all Harper needs to begin to heat up at the plate.