PHILADELPHIA – A couple of years ago, Bryce Harper found himself in an early September slump, so he shaved his beard in San Diego.
Asked why, he said, “I mean, you guys know. Everybody knows.”
Sometimes, you just need to try something new. Harper got a buzz cut before Monday night’s 3-2 loss to the Cardinals at Citizens Bank Park. It might have been a way to try to change his luck again. Or maybe he just wanted a fresh cut. Harper was batting .272 (22-for-81) with five home runs, 14 RBIs and a .910 OPS in 22 games through April 20. He is batting .189 (14-for-74) with two homers, eight RBIs and a .615 OPS in 19 games since.
He went 0-for-3 with a walk on Monday.
“He’s frustrated,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “He expects himself to produce. Right now, it’s off and on. The balance is a little bit off right now, and they’re pitching him tough.”
Harper hasn’t been getting many pitches to hit this season. Entering Monday, he had seen pitches in the zone only 42.9 percent of the time, which ranked last out of 277 hitters in MLB (minimum 300 pitches).
Only five of 18 pitches (27.8 percent) were in the zone on Monday night.
Several weren’t even close.
Entering Monday, Harper had seen the fewest fastballs (45.4 percent) in his career. He had never seen fewer than 49.3 percent.
He saw only six fastballs (33 percent) on Monday.
Harper swung and missed at Matthew Liberatore’s 0-2 curveball out of the zone in the first inning. He walked in the third. He grounded out on a sinker in the fifth. He struck out looking on a slider in the seventh.
Harper has shown flashes this month. He had back-to-back multi-hit games on May 4 and 6, which included a home run. He had three hits, including a homer, in Saturday’s victory in Cleveland.
“For us,” Kyle Schwarber said, “I’ve always told this to people. Especially him, when he steps up to the plate, everyone is always expecting something to happen. Right? You’re expecting a great result to happen. I think that, the dugout thinks that, whatever it is. It gets frustrating. The game’s frustrating. You play so many of them. There could be a week span -- it could be tomorrow -- where everyone forgets about it. I think that’s the best thing about this game because everyone can have a short memory.
“I think the biggest thing is he keeps putting in the work. If he goes out there and keeps going to the plate, there’s always going to be a chance. That’s the biggest thing.”
Slumps happen. Schwarber batted .194 (14-for-72) with two homers, seven RBIs and a .691 OPS in an 18-game stretch from April 9-27, although he found ways to get on base.
Schwarber flicked a single to center field in the sixth inning on Monday to extend his on-base streak to 47 games. It is the fourth-longest streak in Phillies history, behind Mike Schmidt’s 56 (1981-82), Chuck Klein’s 49 (1930) and Bobby Abreu’s 48 (2000-01).
It is the longest streak in baseball since Tommy Pham’s 48-game streak in 2018-19.
Liberatore threw Schwarber a 2-1 slider up in the zone in the sixth. The ball left Schwarber’s bat at 77 mph and dropped into center field for a hit.
Nick Castellanos followed with a bloop single to center. Schwarber read the ball perfectly and raced to third as the ball fell a few feet in front of Cardinals center fielder José Barrero. He scored on a fielder’s choice to tie the game.
Masyn Winn homered to left against Matt Strahm in the seventh to give the Cardinals the lead. St. Louis closer Ryan Helsley struck out Max Kepler and Brandon Marsh and got Trea Turner to line out to right field to end the game.
Harper finished the night standing in the on-deck circle.
Harper went 0-for-3 with a walk on the day he shaved his beard in San Diego in 2023. He doubled the next game and batted .294 with six homers, 17 RBIs and a 1.085 OPS in the season’s final 22 games.
“There’s always a chance when he keeps walking up to the plate,” Schwarber said. “Everyone in the room has faith in him. It’s not like we’re thinking anything different. We think that every time he walks to the plate that there’s going to be a really good result that’s going to happen.”