In unfamiliar leadoff spot, Harper finds familiar power stroke

Bryce Harper was out on the field at 3 p.m. today, joining injured teammates Anthony Rendon and Daniel Murphy for a round of early batting practice. It's the kind of a thing a player does when he's struggling, when he needs to work on some specific techniques or change his mechanics.

For Harper, the early BP session had a simpler purpose.

"Just hit some homers," he said. "Get some balls over the plate and do some damage."

When opposing pitchers are giving you nothing to swing at all night, too afraid to let you beat them and too confident to face the slumping hitters behind you, there just aren't many opportunities to cut loose and feel the barrel of the bat make contact with the ball. So Harper figured he'd try to get that sensation back by launching a whole bunch of 45-foot tosses by batting practice pitcher Ali Modami into the far reaches of Nationals Park, with nobody in attendance yet.

Whether any of that carried over into tonight's game - a 12-4 thumping of the Pirates - depends on how much you believe in fate or not. Regardless, there's no disputing the fact that Harper got three good opportunities to swing the bat and all three times made solid contact for the first time in several weeks.

And one of those swings resulted in his biggest hit in 13 games: a three-run homer over the left field bullpen in the bottom of the fifth that served as the biggest offensive highlight on a night filled with them for the home team.

"I just thought I had some good at-bats," said Harper, who hit eight homers in his first 17 games before finally hitting his ninth in Game No. 30. "I jumped on it early the best I could, and got some good pitches over the plate to drive. I did some damage on that homer."

Adding to the intrigue, Harper found himself in an unusual position tonight: leading off for the first time since a stretch of 16 games in late-summer 2013.

With so few opportunities to watch his star slugger swing in recent weeks, manager Davey Martinez decide to make the unconventional move and bat Harper in the leadoff spot. The rationale: The Pirates would have to pitch to him at least once (in the first inning), and if he did walk the Nats would maybe get a few more shots to drive him in with hot-hitting Trea Turner and Matt Adams behind him.

Little could Martinez have predicted how well the arrangement would work out. Harper indeed was pitched to in the bottom of the first, and though he grounded out sharply to first base, he at least got to experience a typical at-bat for a change.

"It felt like he participated," Martinez said, "instead of going up there walking."

Harper actually thought his best swing of the game came in the bottom of the third, when he jumped on Chad Kuhl's first pitch and drove it to the warning track in left field, where Corey Dickerson caught it. That set the stage, though, for what happened two innings later, when Harper again pounced on Kuhl's first pitch and this time sent it soaring over the visitors' bullpen.

"Seriously, I thought I missed that ball to left, the homer," he said. "I thought I got the popup down the line more than I did the homer. But it went over the fence, so I'll take it."

Harper did finally draw his token walk of the evening in the sixth, which merely loaded the bases and allowed Turner to drive in three runs with a double to the gap in left-center. With his team up 12 runs, he got the rest of the night off, content to take a seat after going 1-for-3 with the homer, walk and three hard-hit balls.

"I think it just boosts his confidence," said Adams, who belted a pair of homers himself batting third tonight. "But he's a professional the way he goes about his business. You would look at him and you wouldn't think that he is not getting pitches to hit. His demeanor out there is the same. It's fun to share a field with him the type of player that he is."

Harper was able to crack a smile when he returned to the dugout following his homer. After accepting high-fives from several teammates, he approached Martinez and wrapped his arms around his first-year manager.

"He believes in our team," Harper said. "He believes in us as a group, and we believe in him as well. He's one of the best managers I've ever been around. He really values his team, and how he wants to do it and how he wants to approach it. He's always positive, always doing everything he can to keep our spirits high."

The star slugger and the new skipper are hitting it off, so much so that he immediately embraced the idea of batting leadoff. And when it happens again Wednesday night, he'll embrace it again.

"We'll let it ride for a couple days, see what happens," Martinez said. "Like I said, I'm proud of him, because he has been frustrated. And he went out there today and got some pitches to hit and hit 'em hard."