A curious and alarming trend continues as Bryce Harper suffered yet another hit by pitch injury
In Last night’s division affair, Bryce Harper would take a high and inside fastball to the once surgically repaired elbow from Braves ace Spencer Strider. He would drop in a squat and appear to be in some immense pain as he left the game with an injury that, as of writing this article, is yet to be known just how severe it was. Anything that is enough to knock Bryce Harper out of a game, though, is probably pretty substantial. This incident highlights a bizarre trend with the Phillies’ first baseman; he continues to get hit by pitches. The franchise player taking pitches to important body parts over and over again is certainly not ideal, and last night’s incident was not an isolated one.
Now let it be known that Harper is not being targeted. He never is anywhere close to the league lead in hit by pitches (HBP), and he is also not in the vein of a Chase Utley who tries to get hit to get on base. While it is not the number of times he is getting hit, it is the catastrophic results that come from each time Bryce Harper is hit. In 2021, in what was easily the scariest incident, Bryce was hit in the face with a 97MPH fastball from Genesis Cabrera in a game against the Cardinals. Bryce would somehow be largely fine and would rally back to win the MVP that year. In 2022, he was hit in the thumb with a Blake Snell fastball, which broke his thumb and required surgery. He would miss about a month of the season, and it would take the majority of the season for his power to come back. He did recover in time to carry the Phillies to a World Series appearance, and after that incident, you would have hoped that would be the end of all of this. Unfortunately, fast forward to spring of this year against the Toronto Blue Jays when lefty Richard Lovelady buzzed him up and in with one pitch, and then a few pitches later drilled him in the upper arm, nearly his face. This was Spring Training, and Bryce wasn’t even safe. Then we get to last night, and Bryce was once again drilled, up and in, and may once again miss some time.
So why is this happening? It’s not really all that clear. Bryce is not crowding the plate, and at this point, with what he has dealt with, he certainly does not attempt to. Bryce is also a largely respected veteran and face of the game too so, unlike what Cole Hamels did to him 13 years ago, no one is trying to send a message. A commonality between all of these incidents is the pitchers looking on in apologetic horror. The only logical solution might have something to do with the scouting report on Bryce; pound him up and in with fastballs. This would make sense as Bryce does struggle with fastballs in that area, and honestly, at this point, with how many times he has been hit, maybe you can use his nerves to your advantage? However, not every pitcher in this league has pinpoint accuracy, and like Whit Merrifield said last season, this league rewards velocity, not accuracy. Bryce is vulnerable to up and in heat, teams are trying to throw the ball there, and we have a menagerie of pitchers out there who hit their spots at a 30% success rate. What we have is a recipe for disaster. Ultimately, there is not much that can be done other than hope this doesn’t happen again, or if it does, that Bryce will be okay. While still unclear, hopefully, this elbow drilling isn’t that bad, and maybe he can respond the way he has after the past few big HBP. A pitch to the face resulted in an MVP, and another one a broken thumb, which resulted in a World Series push. Maybe this elbow shot will lead to a parade down Broad Street?