The critics have always been there, picking, prodding, scoffing.
They started making their case when he was a teenager, not old enough to legally operate a motor vehicle but good enough to be dubbed baseball’s LeBron James. That sparked it all. The detractors pounced on everything from a junior college ejection to him playing too hard to him not playing hard enough.
Bryce Harper, in part because of his own doing and in part because he was a lightning rod, was lit up no matter what he did. And this season it hit another level when his midsummer struggles led to talks about him being demoted to the minors and even the idea that, at 21 years old, he could be traded for pitching.
Well, Harper is now shutting up everyone who questioned his on-field talent and off-the-field life with the most impressive and impactful offensive stretch of his young major league career. Since the early part of August, Harper has wrecked the ball and been a huge reason why the Washington Nationals have gone 20-10 in their last 30 games and surged to the best record in the National League.
Since Aug. 7 and through this past weekend, Harper hit .306/.356/.537 with an .893 OPS, eight home runs, 15 RBI and 33 total hits. At the start of that stretch, Harper hit a walk-off home run a day after the dust-up about the possibility of him being optioned to the minors because he was hitting .250 with three home runs through his first 53 games of the season.
“He needed that probably more than any hitter in the big leagues,” Washington reliever Craig Stammen told The Washington Post after that walk-off shot.
In that same Adam Kilgore story, Denard Span elaborated on how important Harper is to the team’s success.
“We need to get him going,” Span said. “When he’s hitting it makes us 10 times more dangerous. It makes the lineup obviously deeper. Hopefully he takes that and builds off of it and keeps it going.”
He has done exactly that. Harper, one of Major League Baseball’s most recognizable stars, is now in position to lead the Nationals into October, and if his hot run continues through autumn and the Nats are playing deep into next month, critics will be forced to zip their lips.
Harper’s teammates have plenty to do with how far this team goes, obviously. The club was built on starting pitching, and that group has been lights out since the All-Star break. The rotation had a 3.08 ERA with a 4.4 wins above replacement (WAR) mark in the second part of the season through Sunday. Both numbers were the best in the league in that time.
And their other superstar, Stephen Strasburg, is rebounding in the way Harper has. Strasburg has been flat-out ace-like in his last eight starts dating back to July 29. That is right around the time Harper got hot and the Nationals started to push their lead in the NL East to the current eight games. In those eight starts, Strasburg has a 2.79 ERA and opponents are hitting .208 against him.
As for as the others in the lineup with Harper, they have helped this surge by leading the league with 40 home runs in August while coming in second in slugging percentage and OPS. They’ve continued to hit in September, putting up 10 homers.
The Nationals are healthy now, something they waited to say for the first four months of the season when nicks and bruises and strains and tightness threatened their place in the playoff hunt. If they can stay mostly in one piece, they have the parts to be the best team in baseball.
If Harper is on, he has the talent to be one of the best hitters.
Clearly Harper doesn’t have this all figured out yet. He still makes mistakes on the field, like colliding with a teammate at a critical juncture of a game, and the ones off the field, like snapping at a respected baseball writer for asking about a hitting slump two years ago. Those miscues are likely to continue as long as the spotlight is shining on him.
Bryce Harper walks over to Denard Span during the pitching change. Span doesn't budge, looks like he wants Harper to die in a fire.
— Dennis Deitch (@DennisDeitch) September 6, 2014
He is also still 21, and won’t be 22 until Oct. 16. So maturity will come with age.
But Harper's age does not mean he isn't a critical fixture in the Nationals lineup. They really do need him hitting. He has an offensive skill set that can change a lineup and how opponents approach it. He has speed, power and the ability to hit the ball to the opposite field, and that kind of combination, when utilized, can carry a team for a month.
The month we are talking about is October, and Harper has his swing back just in time to give it a run.
Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News, and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.
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