Bryce Harper: Top 10 Moments with the Washington Nationals

It’s still unknown where Bryce Harper will be playing baseball in 2019 and beyond, but we looked back at his top 10 moments with the Washington Nationals.

Bryce Harper has arguably been the face of the Washington Nationals since he burst onto the scenes as an exuberant young rookie in 2012. Now, with the 2018 season in the rearview mirror, the superstar is set to hit free agency at just 26 years old.

It’s been a rollercoaster ride throughout his seven years in the nation’s capital. He’s had the highs such as winning MVP and huge playoff dingers but suffered the lows with early playoff exits and seasons he’s struggled with injuries.

Let’s focus on the former and take a look at Harper’s top 10 moments while donning a Nationals uniform. There’s no shortage of big moments, including playoff home runs, landmark achievements and walk-off bombs.

Some of the honorable mentions:

• First walk-off homer against the Pittsburgh Pirates
• Harper’s triple and a home run in Game 5 against the St. Louis Cardinals
• Mass Brawl after Hunter Strickland hit him with a pitch
• Two Opening Day home runs against the Miami Marlins in 2013
• Broken bat home run against the New York Mets in 2018
• “That’s a clown question bro” quote in Toronto
• Being drafted and introduced by the Washington Nationals

It was extremely difficult to narrow the list down to just 10 moments, more difficult than it appeared to be at the start. We start off the list with one of the many memorable walk-offs Bryce Harper had, and against a fierce division rival no less.

9 – Grand Slam vs Braves for Number 100

Only Bryce Harper would find a way to hit his first ever grand slam as his 100th career home run with the Washington Nationals. And that was exactly what happened against the Atlanta Braves in mid-April of 2016 as he looked to build on his MVP campaign in 2015.

You could sense something was brewing as it was Julio Teheran on the mound, who Harper has had incredible success against in his career. Throughout his seven big league seasons, he’s hit .450 off the right-hander with a startling 1.702 OPS in 52 ABs against him.

Harper was continuing an early season barrage after his 2015 MVP season and eclipsed the landmark in style. Matt den Dekker, Chris Heisey, and Anthony Rendon occupied the bases. That set the stage for his piece of history.

The outfielder was the eighth youngest player in MLB history to reach the century mark in long balls at 23 years and 181 days old. It’s a pretty prestigious group, as the eight reaching it at a younger age were Mel Ott, Tony Conigliaro, Eddie Mathews, Alex Rodriguez, Andruw Jones, Miguel Cabrera, and Johnny Bench.

He also told Bill Ladson after the game about a special person in the crowd that day that he was able to please. “It was awesome. It was my mom’s birthday, so I was able to hit her a homer,” as that seemed to be the cherry on top of a great day for Harper.

8 – First major league hit ripped into CF

The birth of the Bryce Harper era for the Washington Nationals had to start somewhere. So on April 28th, 2012, Harper gave the team’s fans a taste of what was the come with his first base hit in the major leagues.

With the Nationals leading 1-0 in the top of the seventh of his big league debut, Harper stepped in against Chad Billingsley for the third time. Cue a ball absolutely drilled to centerfield over the head of Matt Kemp to tally a base hit for the first time in his career.

The tone was set for the early stages of his career with his typical exuberance as he flew out of the box and for the first time threw off his helmet in trademark fashion. He even appeared to be looking for a triple off the bat because that’s just the type of player he was back then.

For a franchise that hadn’t had too much excitement on its roster in the seven seasons they had been in the nation’s capital, it was refreshing to see Harper inject energy into the team. Nats fans would become accustomed to the hustle, hair-flipping and raw power over the next few seasons.

Even the best in the game had to start somewhere. Bryce Harper just happened to have a moment at the very beginning that somewhat poetically summarizes what he would bring to the franchise to start his career.

7 – Pinch-Hit Game-Tying Bomb v Twins

Sitting at number seven is one of those “Are you kidding me? Did that really just happen?” moments. Bryce Harper was due a day off when the Washington Nationals had a Sunday day game against the Minnesota Twins in early April back of 2016.

He was less than a month removed from picking up his MVP award on the field and was on a mission in April, as he has been throughout his career. Entering the game, he was slashing a ridiculous .311/.397/.803 with eight home runs, 22 RBI and more walks than strikeouts. He seemed invincible at this point.

Therefore then-manager Dusty Baker was trying to preserve his star player early on to keep him at that MVP level all year long. While that didn’t work out as he got hurt and never really recovered, it didn’t stop him dropping many people’s jaws against the Twins.

With the Nats trailing in the bottom of the ninth, Baker sent his secret weapon up to the plate. Harper then proceeded to send a missile into centerfield to tie the game. Cue pandemonium in the stands.

You could even argue that it wasn’t the most remarkable part of the game. In the 15th inning, Twins catcher John Ryan Murphy threw a routine bunt from Oliver Perez into the outfield that allowed Danny Espinosa to score. Then later on Chris Heisey hit a walk-off home run to send everyone home in the 16th inning.

But that doesn’t take anything away from Harper, who was in the midst of his most dominant spell at the plate in his big league career. he was quite possibly the best player in baseball not named Mike Trout at that point. This home run was merely the tip of the iceberg for him then.

6 – Harper receives unanimous NL MVP

This was a particularly difficult moment to rank among the best in the career of Bryce Harper. Overall, it was the 2015 season he had for the Washington Nationals that was incredible and his performances throughout the year will live long in the memory.

But seeing as it’s tough to class a whole season as a moment, Harper receiving the award to begin the 2016 season sums it up nicely for the outfielder and his hometown fans. General Manager Mike Rizzo presented him with his unanimous award on the field along with the Silver Slugger Award he earned in the same season.

Harper’s 2015 season consisted of a .330 batting average, .460 on-base percentage, a ludicrous 1.109 OPS, as well as 118 runs, 42 home runs, and 99 RBI. His 10.0 bWAR leads all single-season figures in franchise history, which includes the Montreal Expos days.

His MVP award was particularly special because he was able to do so at such a young age. At 22 years and 353 days old, he’s the youngest to ever unanimously win an MVP award. The only others who won the award at a younger age were Vida Blue in 1971, Johnny Bench in 1970 and Stan Musial in 1943.

While he hasn’t quite lived up to that standard since 2015, mostly through injuries, at just 26 years old, you wouldn’t bet against him getting back there. Hopefully, he’ll be doing so once again in a Nationals uniform in 2019 and beyond.

5 – Harper steals home off Hamels

While we’ve had a lot of home runs so far, but you could argue that nothing signifies Bryce Harper more than this moment. Still in his rookie season with the Washington Nationals, early on in the year, he proved he was here to stay against a primetime matchup against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Harper came up in the first inning with two outs, so Phillies starter Cole Hamels decided to send a message to the youngster with fastball way inside. The left-hander even admitted after the game that it was a cheap shot at the Nats young rookie telling Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer “I was trying to hit him. I’m not going to deny it.”

But after putting Harper on base, the outfielder was able to respond in the best way possible. He went first-to-third on a Jayson Werth single, and then when Hamels lazily tossed a pick-off attempt to first base, Harper sent his own message by swiping home.

It’s not so much what the actual steal meant in the grand scheme of the game, but more what it signified for the young rookie and his attitude to the game. Harper talked to Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post about his memory of the incident back in 2015 when he then faced Hamels for the first time since that day:

“It was just like, boom, boom, boom. One thing happened, one thing happened, and it led to the steal of home. Fans were going crazy. The team was going crazy. I don’t know if Tracy was very excited because he had an RBI chance against Hamels. It was fun. It was a cool opportunity. I’m actually kind of happy now that he did drill me, so I could have that opportunity.”

You could collectively hear the “Yeh, you’re gonna be alright kid,” from everyone around baseball. The incident firmly established Harper as the face of the new breed Nationals that were set to take the league by storm.

4 – Walk-off caps off six homers in three days

The second and final walk-off home run on our best Bryce Harper moments comes on the back of him hitting five home runs in his previous two games. Then, with the Washington Nationals tied in the ninth inning, he continued his rampage against the Atlanta Braves.

Earlier in the game, Harper was able to make a great catch in right field with his team up by 6-3 to prevent another run scoring. However, Tanner Roark blew the lead in the top of the eighth which set the stage for the future MVP to be the hero.

Yunel Escobar beat out an infield single before Jayson Werth struck out, which brought Harper to the plate. Cody Martin actually threw a pretty good slider down below the zone, but when you’re hot, you’re hot and Harper was able to drill it out to right-center to win the game and extend his incredible run.

Harper was the first player since Hee-Seop Choi in 2005 to hit that many homers in three games. To do it with a game-winner against the Atlanta Braves no less was just an incredible feat and unbelievable moment for those there to witness some history.

We don’t need to go into any more detail about the amazing season he had in 2015 that followed this barrage of long balls. But the combination of the historic six home runs in three games capped off by the walk-off get this quite high on the list, perhaps higher than people were expecting.

3 – Home Run Derby at Nationals Park

The top three in this list have quite a large margin over the rest of this list. The Home Run Derby reminded Washington Nationals fans how much they loved Bryce Harper, and it reminded Bryce Harper of how much he loved the fans.

Harper was able to cruise through the first two rounds of the competition without too much sweat. The outfielder dispatched Freddie Freeman with 30 seconds to go, and then blazed past Max Muncy with well over a minute to spare.

But in the final, Kyle Schwarber set a challenging 18 home runs to beat. Things didn’t look good for Harper needing 9 home runs in 54 seconds and 7 in just 38 seconds. But then he went on a magical rampage to finish off his regulation time tied with Schwarber’s 18. The final home run in bonus time was easy and sealed an amazing win in MLB’s showcase event.

It’s tough to recall a non-playoff game where the Nationals Park crowd has been quite as loud as it was in the final round of the HR Derby. The last 38 seconds where he just peppered home run after home run actually made the TV camera shake, and will no doubt give many Nats fans chills.

We even awarded this as District on Deck’s Moment of the 2018 Season at the end of the season. Some may say that this is too high for an event that wasn’t an actual game, but this Home Run Derby is an exception to the rule.

The number three spot in our best Bryce Harper moments is well deserved for this performance.

2 – Harper hits a splash bomb off Strickland

Everything in the postseason gets magnified, and nothing emphasizes that more than the battle we saw between Bryce Harper and Hunter Strickland. We’ll also come onto his other game-tying postseason home run for the Washington Nationals later on.

After a dramatic moonshot of a homer back in Game One at Nationals Park, there was already tension around a rematch. With the San Francisco Giants holding a slender 1-0 lead in the seventh inning, Harper dug into the batter’s box.

Strickland delivered a fastball right down the heart of the plate and Harper took aim, depositing it into McCovey Cove to tie the game. He waited to see if it was going to be fair, tossed the bat down and milked the huge homer for all it was worth, and rightly so.

Unfortunately, Matt Thornton and Aaron Barrett combined to cough up the lead in the bottom of the frame as the Nats suffered yet more NLDS heartbreak, this time before game five like several others.

It’s hard to forget, but Strickland obviously took issue with both of Harper’s home runs in the postseason. In their first meeting since the postseason back in 2017, Strickland decided to throw at Harper, causing a mass brawl and suspensions for both players. All because the right-hander gave up home runs.

As we all know, Harper finished 2014 strong with a good August and September before taking off in October. This extended run of form likely catapulted him to the best offensive season in team history in 2015 in the MVP award he won and we’ve already mentioned numerous times.

1 – Game-Tying Home Run in NLDS Game 2

“With one out, the pitch. Swing and a long drive, deep to right, going, going, gone goodbye! He has done it. He has changed the game of the night, with one swing of his bat! Bang Zoom go the fireworks, and Bang Zoom goes Bryce Harper!”

When just reading a radio call give you chills, you know it was great. Charlie Slowes, the Washington Nationals radio announcer, absolutely nailed it in what is, by far and away, the most memorable moment of Bryce Harper‘s time with the Nationals.

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After working his way back from an injury that likely cost him his second NL MVP award late in the season, he hadn’t quite looked like himself for a while. And while he still didn’t get back on track in the series overall, it speaks to Harper’s ability to step up at any given moment and ability to strike fear into opposing pitching because of his game-changing talent.

The Nationals were quickly heading to a 2-0 deficit in the series with the offense barely whimpering against the Chicago Cubs so far. Adam Lind got a pinch-hit single with Victor Robles taking his place on the basepaths. After a Trea Turner strikeout, Harper worked his way to a favorable 3-1 count against Carl Edwards Jr. and the rest is history.

And then to add to the moment even more, later on in the same inning, Ryan Zimmerman was able to hit one just over the fence to give the Nationals their first lead of the series. Nobody needs reminding how that series ended, but it gave the Nats Park faithful a moment of elation and is going to be the moment they think about most when Harper’s name is mentioned.

It really was a moment to make hairs on your body perk up, with the sound of the crowd deafening as they went ballistic. It was the biggest stage the team has been to for the team’s biggest player and it couldn’t have been scripted too much better.

You could argue that it’s right up there with the Jayson Werth walk-off home run in Game 4 of the NLDS against the St. Louis Cardinals in 2012 for the greatest moment in Nationals history. Werth likely has the edge in that argument, but not by much. A deserved top moment in his career so far and possibly ever.

Several Washington Nationals fans are hoping that Bryce Harper will stay in the nation’s capital, but we know that may not be the case. It was nice the relive the greatest moment from one the best the Nationals have known in their short history.