Categories: Phillies Nuggets with Tim Kelly

Rob Thomson weighs in on Bryce Harper hustle debate, offers explanation for Wednesday

Bryce Harper is in his sixth season with the Phillies. (Grace Del Pizzo/Phillies Nation)

Bryce Harper had an eventful top of the fourth inning in Wednesday’s Philadelphia Phillies win over the San Francisco Giants. Obviously, the most notable thing that happened was Harper taking exception after he was buzzed twice by Giants starter Kyle Harrison. That led to benches clearing, although it never turned into a brawl.

When the dust finally settled and players returned to their respective positions, Harrison won the battle, getting Harper to ground out to shortstop for the final out of the inning, stranding a pair of runners in scoring position. San Francisco shortstop Brett Wisely made an off-target throw to first base, but Harper wasn’t running close to 100% out of the box, leaving first baseman Wilmer Flores plenty of time to clean up the throw and step on first base for the final out. Would Harper have been safe if he had been busting it out of the box? Maybe not, but it probably would have been pretty close.

Not running one ball out when you feel like you’ve missed an opportunity to do damage — particularly against a pitcher who, even if it was unintentional, did just throw two pitches up and in at you — is hardly the end of the world. But it’s not the only time where it feels like Harper hasn’t run close to his hardest to first base this season, which is jarring when you consider that his reputation has been of someone that, if anything, has played the game too hard for his own good at times.

But at least in terms of Wednesday’s game, Phillies manager Rob Thomson offered an explanation for why Harper might not have run as hard as fans are accustomed to seeing him.

“Well, the other day was on his first swing of the day he kind of, he didn’t tweak anything, he just felt something in his knee. He’s fine,” Thomson revealed.

“But I checked in with him and and I said ‘Just make sure you can finish this game,'” Thomson added. “He’s probably taking care of some energy too at the same time.”

When a reporter followed up to clarify that Harper doesn’t have any lingering knee issues, Thomson reiterated that the two-time NL MVP is good to go. He’s hitting third in the lineup and playing first base in Friday’s series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals at Citizens Bank Park, so there’s no reason to believe Harper isn’t fine.

But the last time Harper played more than 141 games in a season was in 2019, his first season with the Phillies. Much of that — from the pandemic-shortened 2020 season to Blake Snell breaking his left thumb with a pitch in the summer of 2022 — is out of his control. Still, knowing that he has spent time on the injured list in each of the last three seasons, it’s perhaps easier to understand Harper’s anger when he returned to the dugout after his first at-bat Wednesday, when, in addition to striking out, he may have thought for a second he was injured.

Still, there is a larger conversation to be had about whether it makes sense for Harper to run as as hard as he can on every play as he ages. If Harper wants to reach goals like hitting 500+ home runs, he has to stay on the field. If the Phillies want to win as many games as possible and have Harper stay healthy over the course of the remainder of his contract, there may be something to be said for not always going pedal to the metal.

That wasn’t a conversation that Harper and Phillies brass had this past offseason, but Thomson did seem to believe there’s a way to meet in the middle between not running every ball out and being Charlie Hustle.

“No, we never talked about that,” Thomson said. “But he is a guy that there are times that he gets frustrated and doesn’t run balls out and there are times he runs 110% when he probably shouldn’t. So there’s probably a pretty good medium there some place.”

There is a balance to be found here. Phillies icon Chase Utley played a balls-to-the-wall style that made him popular, but his body began to fail him in his early 30s. And Utley didn’t come into the league at age 19, as Harper did. Over a 162-game season — and beyond, the Phillies hope — you do have to take your breaks when you can get them, even if that doesn’t mean being out of the lineup that day.

In May of 2021, former Phillies manager Joe Girardi admitted that the Phillies would like if Harper at times played more at 90% or 95% than 110%. He was 28 then, and he’s 31 now. Finding that balance might be one of the few things Harper hasn’t perfected as a player yet.