Phillies: Lifting Bryce Harper after HBP the prudent move
By Jeff Kallman
The Philadelphia Phillies can’t afford to be careless with Harper. They need him at full power for a season starting with big questions.
Philadelphia Phillies manager Joe Girardi took no chances. With one out and nobody on against the Minnesota Twins in the bottom of the first Tuesday afternoon, Bryce Harper took an 0-1 pitch from Sean Poppen down, in, and off his foot. Harper hopped in discomfort enough that Girardi decided the better part of prudence was to give him the rest of the day off.
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As I write there’s no word as to whether Harper will miss another day’s activity, with the Phillies not scheduled to play an exhibition Wednesday. But Girardi’s prudence with the one man he absolutely can’t afford to lose from his lineup shouldn’t be dismissed.
In spring training, never mind the first month of the regular season, you don’t take too many risks with your most run-productive swinger. That’s what Harper was to the 2019 Phillies, delivering 212 (98 scored, 114 driven in), the most of any Phillie.
Last year’s Phillies finished four games under .500 for reasons having nothing to do with Harper and everything to do with their faltering pitching, the apparent regressions of Rhys Hoskins and now-departed Maikel Franco, and losing veteran Andrew McCutchen (his .378 on-base percentage was second among the National League’s leadoff men at the time) to a torn ACL after only 59 games.
They also faltered because first (and only) year manager Gabe Kapler may have been deft with analytics but seemed blissfully unaware of the best ways to apply the data and clumsy too often in the actual, critical, in-the-game, game-on-the-line moment.