When the news broke on Monday that the Washington Nationals were promoting Bryce Harper to AA Harrisburg, which happens to be where I live, I gave my dad a call and pretty much said “we’re going this week. Pick a night”. We ended up going to last night’s game against the Erie Seawolves, and I intently watched Harper, getting my first look at the 18 year old phenom. Here are a few notes from my experience at the game last night.
-Harper has a great swing. He’s very quick in the batters box. His stance is actually pretty wide and he tends to hug the plate in the box (as you can tell by this picture I took last night)
-When Harper makes contact with the ball, the contact is absolutely explosive. In his four plate appearances on the evening, he rocketed a single that took a bad hop over the first baseman’s glove and was initially called an error before being changed, hit two screaming liners to center field for singles, and laid down a sacrifice bunt that appeared to be of his own doing. Sabermetricians will tell you how stupid bunting is, especially with a player as talented as Harper, but it worked in this case: the runners moved up to second and third, and the next hitter drove both of them in
-I can’t tell you about his defense, because not one ball was hit to him in left field all night
-The kid is fast. He stole a base in the sixth inning, and got a great jump and showed great instincts in swiping the bag.
-Any character concerns were taken care of in my mind, when before the game, Harper was the one player signing autographs for fans. He did it for about 5-10 minutes before heading back into the clubhouse
I really liked what I saw from the young phenom. He’s quite an amazing young talent, especially at only 18 years old. You can tell why he’s either the #1 or #2 prospect in baseball, and I wouldn’t be at all stunned to see him in Washington in 2012 if he keeps going the way he’s going. And who knows, once that rolls around, Nationals fans will probably have this reaction to Harper.
