Bryce Harper Hits Career Home Run Number 250 Thursday. Joe Ross Watches.
This afternoon in the nation’s capital, Bryce Harper hit career home run number 250. It was a 2-1 count with two outs in the top of the third inning at Nationals Park. Joe Ross threw a 94 mph sinker middle-in to Harper and then watched all 427 feet of Harper’s blast out to center. It is the second homer for Harper in the series between the Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Nationals. Clearly he enjoys showing off his swing at his first major-league home.
Bryce Harper against his former team this year 🔥🔥
.405
5 HR
7 RBI
13 games— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) August 4, 2021
Since the calendar turned to August, Harper’s average has climbed over .300 and he’s slashing .306/.417/.557 (before today’s game). More on his overall numbers in a moment.
Fun Factoid Number One.
I’m always a fan of little mathematical “symmetries.” Baseball is a game that provides a ton of them. Harper’s 250th homer makes him the 240th player all-time to have 250 home runs. It’s not as symmetrically beautiful as 250th hitter with 250 homers, but it’s still cool.
Fun Factoid Number Two.
Harper’s outfield mate, Andrew McCutchen, also hit his 250th career home run this season. Cutch hit his back in May against the Miami Marlins. Teammates hitting a milestone homer in the same season is pretty cool and rare, right? Of course it is! However, the Phillies outfielders are not the only teammates to reach the milestone in the 2021 MLB season!! That’s because Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado also crossed number 250 off their lists this season, as well It hasn’t happened to teammates at all in the previous 15 seasons and now it’s happened twice!
Fun Factoid Number Three.
At the still tender young age of 28 years and 293 days, Harper is on a great career trajectory. He’s reached 250 career dingers earlier than some notable so-called Steroid Era mashers. That would be before Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, and Sammy Sosa. Check out the full list courtesy of Paul Hembekides below!
There are 27 members of the 500-home run club.
Bryce Harper (28) reached 250 career HR at a younger age than 16 of them:
Banks
Bonds
Jackson
McCovey
McGwire
Murray
Ortiz
Palmeiro
Ramirez
Ruth
Schmidt
Sheffield
Sosa
Thomas
Thome
Williams pic.twitter.com/1lb8y1U67g— Paul Hembekides (@PaulHembo) August 5, 2021
Harper is stealthy good this year.
Officially, before today’s game, Harper’s 2021 OPS+ of 165 is his second best mark. His best (198!) was in 2015 when he won the NL MVP Award. It places him fourth in the majors and second only to Fernando Tatis Jr. in the NL. Not a bad place to be. His Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) of 158 is also good for fourth in the bigs; again, second to Tatis in the NL. One thing he’s besting Tatis at this year? Harper and Buster Posey are the only full-time National Leaguers with a .300/.400/.500 or better slash line.
MVP Considerations.
On the merit of his own stellar numbers, it looks like Harper should at least be in the conversation to win his second career MVP Award. His low RBI numbers could be damaging to his case, even if we all know that’s a problematic argument. However, with the Phillies chasing down the New York Mets, that could help him. Either way, it’s fun to watch him put together a pretty quietly great season.
Luckily, the Nats’ bullpen is bad enough that the Phillies scored four runs in the top of the ninth inning just now. So, watch your backs Mets.
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