Bryce Harper leaves Lakeland raving after two-homer game

LAKELAND, Fla. - Al Kaline, who only has been watching spring training games at Tiger Town since 1953, called it the longest home run he's ever seen hit here. Willie Horton, another Detroit legend, made sure to track down the young man who hit it and compliment him. Mike Maddux, having spent the last three decades in the game as a big league pitcher, coach and brother of a Hall of Famer, turned to Nationals manager Dusty Baker and gushed: "We get to watch this every day?"

Lofty praise, all of it, for the 23-year-old slugger who unanimously won National League MVP honors last fall but who this spring refuses to rest on his laurels.

The rest of the world may know Bryce Harper has arrived. Harper continues to believe what Frank Sinatra croons in one of his walk-up songs: "The best is yet to come."

"When you think about arriving, or think about, 'Oh, I've done it, or I've done this or done that,' that's when you start going downhill," Harper said. "Rent's paid every day. You really have to go in and go about it the right way every single day. Last year's behind us."

Harper has taken that approach since he arrived in Florida last month, determined not to dwell on his historic 2015 season and to insist to himself and anyone who will listen to him that he can do even more in 2016 and beyond.

Today's exhibition game at Joker Marchant Stadium perhaps underscored that. Harper twice homered off former AL MVP and Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, the second blast leaving the entire ballpark buzzing after it cleared the 30-foot-high batter's eye that hovers over the center field wall that sits 420 feet from the plate.

"Boy, that ball Harp hit is about as long a home run as I've seen," said Baker (who, not for nothing, has either played with or managed Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr. and Jose Canseco).

Harper, of course, lives for the kind of marquee matchup he was a part of today. No, Verlander is not the best pitcher in baseball like he was five years ago. But the right-hander remains as respected as anyone in the sport, certainly for someone who appreciates the game like Harper.

"He's definitely a guy you want to face and a guy who's one of the best in the game right now," Harper said. "But I try to go about it just having good at-bats and not really worry about who I'm facing and what I'm trying to do or anything like that. Just try to see a pitch and hit it."

Harper has done plenty of that this spring - he sports a .333 batting average - but he hadn't cleared the fence until today, when he took Verlander deep to right-center on a 3-2 slider in the top of the first, then launched his tape-measure homer to center on a high fastball in the top of the fifth.

"Today, he hit mistakes," said Verlander, who hadn't allowed a run in his first three starts this spring. "Obviously, you're not the caliber player that he is without ... you tend to hit mistakes and do damage. But those guys, like Miguel (Cabrera), they foul off good pitches when you really execute. Or they take it somehow. And then you make a mistake, and they do damage. Today was kind of the perfect storm for that, because I was missing up all day, so that played right into his swing."

With the Nationals' entire projected lineup making the trip from Viera for this game, Harper got a chance to hit with proven talent both in front (Ben Revere, Daniel Murphy) and behind him (Ryan Zimmerman, Jayson Werth, Anthony Rendon).

Whether Verlander (or any other big league pitcher) would still go right after Harper if this was the regular season remains to be seen. Either way, the reigning MVP is ready for whatever is thrown his way this season.

"I think it'll be the same," he said. "I think really just trying to have good at-bats and take that right approach of trying to find my pitch and drive my pitch and not chase anything. If I can walk 150 times a year, 200 times a year, I'll be OK. I'm just going to try to have good at-bats and go about it the right way. Try to stay healthy, that's the main thing."