The Fightins: Bryce Harper crushes 9th inning home run, Phillies come back again vis Nationals

The Phillies are the first team in Major League Baseball history to hit a go-ahead home run in the ninth inning of three consecutive games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, and the man who delivered the third one was Bryce Harper launching a two-run opposite-field shot off Nationals reliever Gus Varland to break a 5-5 tie on Thursday night at Nationals Park and complete a 10-5 comeback win against the franchise that drafted him first overall in 2010 and watched him leave for Philadelphia seven years later.

Bryce Harper – RING IT (Swipe)

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Three consecutive nights at Nationals Park and three consecutive ninth-inning go-ahead homers from three different Phillies hitters. Tuesday it was Marsh tying it and Stott launching the three-run shot during the eight-run ninth. Wednesday it was Derek Hill coming off the bench with a toothpick in his mouth to hit a pinch-hit two-run blast on the Phillies’ final strike.

Thursday it was Harper taking Varland opposite field for his 18th homer of the season to put the Phillies ahead for good while gesturing toward the right-field seats where Nationals fans had been heckling the Phillies all night long because apparently nobody in Washington learned from the previous two games that talking trash to this team in the late innings is the worst possible strategy.

The Nationals fans were chanting at Harper most of the night and his response was to wait until the ninth inning and then crush a go-ahead homer into the seats while pointing at the section that had been the loudest all game.

That’s the most Bryce Harper thing imaginable because the man feeds on hostility from opposing crowds the way Schwarber feeds on fastballs over the plate, and the Nationals fans who chose to heckle the former number one overall pick of their own franchise gave him exactly the kind of motivation that turns a regular at-bat into a moment he’ll remember for the rest of his career.

Three Straight Nights of Magic from the Phillies

No team in the history of Major League Baseball has ever hit a go-ahead homer in the ninth inning of three straight games and the fact that the Phillies accomplished it in a four-game series at Nationals Park with three different hitters delivering the decisive swings tells you everything about the mentality this team has developed under Mattingly.

Tuesday’s eight-run ninth with the Marsh and Stott homers was supposed to be a once-in-a-season event, the kind of game you tell your grandchildren about because it was so improbable that you’ll never see anything like it again.

The Fightins: Phillies score eight runs with two outs in the ninth, turn 8-6 deficit to 14-9 win vs Nationals >>

Then Wednesday happened with Hill’s pinch-hit blast on the final strike and suddenly the “once in a season” event had happened twice in 24 hours. Then Thursday happened with Harper going opposite field in the ninth against his former team and the Phillies wrote themselves into a record book that nobody even knew existed because no team had ever done what they just did across three consecutive games.

The Fightins: Derek Hill delivers a pinch-hit go-ahead homer in the 9th, Phillies beat the Nats 5-4 >>

The Phillies have been down in the ninth inning three straight nights and have responded by producing three go-ahead homers from three different players, which is either a statistical anomaly that defies all probability models or evidence that this team has a level of fight and belief that transcends what the numbers say should be possible.

I’m going with the second explanation because the win probability charts from Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday combined would look like a seismograph during an earthquake and the Phillies were on the winning side of every tremor.

Brandon Marsh’s Series Was Absurd

Brandon Marsh finished the four-game series against the Nationals hitting .529 with a 9-for-17 line that included a double, three homers, six runs scored, and six RBI across four games in Washington.

The man who leads the majors in batting average played the entire Nationals series like he was personally offended by every pitcher Washington sent to the mound and the two-run homer in the sixth inning Thursday that started the comeback was the latest example of Marsh refusing to let the Phillies lose a game he’s playing in.

Marsh knows Harper was motivated by the fans getting after the Phillies and the combination of Marsh’s relentless production and Harper’s clutch ninth-inning power has given the Phillies the kind of one-two punch in the middle of the lineup that can carry the offense on nights when the rest of the lineup isn’t clicking.

When Marsh is hitting .529 in a series and Harper is hitting go-ahead homers in the ninth, the Phillies don’t need the entire lineup to produce because those two are generating enough offense to win games by themselves.

The Seventh-Inning Rally Set Up Harper’s Heroics

Before Harper’s homer in the ninth, the Phillies had to tie the game first, and they did it in the seventh by taking advantage of four walks from Nationals relievers Mitchell Parker and Clayton Beeter to score three runs and knot things at 5-5.

Four walks in one inning from two different relievers is the kind of gift that good teams capitalize on and bad teams waste, and the Phillies turned free baserunners into three runs without needing a single extra-base hit because the lineup was disciplined enough to take what Washington’s bullpen was giving them.

The patience at the plate in the seventh set up Harper’s aggression in the ninth because the tie game meant one swing could win it instead of needing a multi-run rally, and Harper delivered exactly the swing the Phillies needed on an opposite-field homer that showed he wasn’t trying to pull everything over the wall for the highlight reel but was simply trying to hit the ball hard and let the result take care of itself.

45-36 and the Phillies Own Washington

The Phillies improved to 45-36 on the season with a 19-9 record since May 25 that has closed the gap on Atlanta and cemented their position in the Wild Card race heading into the final stretch before the All-Star break.

The dominance over Washington specifically has been one of the most lopsided divisional matchups in baseball over the last five years because the Phillies are now 53-20 against the Nationals since July 29, 2021, outscoring them 458-303 with a plus-155 run differential that tells you Washington has been a punching bag for this organization since the moment Harper left the Nationals and joined the Phillies.

Taking three of four in Washington with three consecutive ninth-inning go-ahead homers is the kind of series that builds the confidence of a team heading into a stretch where every win matters and the margin between a Wild Card spot and watching October from home is measured in a handful of games.

The Phillies have shown over the last three nights that they will not be eliminated from any game regardless of the score or the inning because someone in the lineup is going to come through with the swing that changes everything.

Harper doing it against the Nationals, the team that drafted him and lost him, in the city where he started his career, while pointing at the fans who were heckling him all night, is the kind of poetic justice that baseball produces better than any other sport. The Nationals drafted Bryce Harper first overall and he just hit a go-ahead ninth-inning homer against them to complete the first three-game streak of its kind in MLB history.

Bet those fans wish they’d kept their mouths shut.

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