WASHINGTON -- Bryce Harper carried his bat almost the entire way up the first-base line on Thursday.
He couldn’t be sure if the ball he hit in the seventh inning would clear the center-field fence or be caught on the warning track. Hitting a ball to center on a chilly day at Nationals Park can change the flight of a baseball, even one as well-struck as Harper hit in the Phillies’ 7-3 Opening Day victory against the Nationals.
Besides, it had been a while since he homered.
Harper last homered in October in Game 2 of the NL Division Series against the Mets. He had 44 plate appearances this spring without one. Not too many people noticed, because it’s Spring Training and Spring Training numbers don’t mean much for somebody like Harper. After all, he batted .179 without a homer the previous spring, but he hit 30 homers in the regular season and finished sixth for NL MVP.
“We were talking about it,” Harper said Thursday evening. “Me and K-Long [hitting coach Kevin Long], and he reminded me that I homered on the back field [at Carpenter Complex] in my first at-bat [in February].
“So, that made me feel good.”
Harper homered against right-hander Nabil Crismatt that afternoon.
He homered against right-hander Lucas Sims on Opening Day.
“I know he was trying to go down and away; he yanked the fastball, and that was it,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said.
Harper hit second in the season opener behind Trea Turner. Alec Bohm hit third and Kyle Schwarber hit fourth.
It went pretty well. Turner went 0-for-4 with a walk. But on an afternoon when the Phillies struck out 19 times -- the second-most by any MLB team on Opening Day since at least 1901 -- he struck out once. Most importantly, he saw 28 pitches in five plate appearances. Turner worked a six-pitch at-bat against Nats left-hander MacKenzie Gore in the first inning. He worked an eight-pitch at-bat against him in the fourth.
Turner ran up Gore’s pitch count, forcing him out of the game following six dominant innings.
Harper’s homer in the seventh tied the game. Schwarber’s homer later that inning gave the Phillies a one-run lead.
Bohm’s two-out double in the 10th gave the Phillies a two-run lead.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson entered the season knowing he wanted Turner, Harper, Bohm and Schwarber to be his first four hitters in the lineup. He just didn’t know exactly how he wanted to hit them.
He still doesn’t know how it’s going to go the entire season. But his lineup Saturday against Nats right-hander Jake Irvin is probably going to be different. It means Schwarber could hit leadoff, followed by Turner, Harper and Bohm.
“We’re still playing with it,” Thomson said.
The truth is, it really doesn’t matter all that much. Maybe there is an incremental edge over the course of a 162-game season. But, really, if those four hitters produce like they have in the past, it won’t matter where they hit, just like it didn’t really matter that Harper hadn’t homered this spring.
Good hitters hit.
“Definitely felt good on that swing,” Harper said. “Felt like it all came together right there.”