Harper joins 20-20 club for first time in big league career

To his already hefty list of accomplishments in a brief major league career, Bryce Harper can now add another achievement: He has joined the 20-20 club for the first time.

With a successful swipe of second base during last night's 9-7 victory over the Braves, Harper notched his 20th steal of the season. He already had 23 homers, which makes him the newest member of the 20-20 club.

Harper is one of seven big leaguers with at least 20 homers and 20 steals so far this season, joining Mike Trout, Wil Myers, Paul Goldschmidt, Mookie Betts, Jose Altuve and former teammate Ian Desmond (who has done it in his first year in Texas).

Harper joins Desmond (who previously did it in 2012, 2013 and 2014) and Alfonso Soriano (2006) as the only 20-20 players in Washington baseball history. Nobody from either version of the Senators ever had a 20-20 season.

Still only 23 until next month, Harper has achieved quite a bit at such a young age. It may have surprised some, though, that he hadn't gone 20-20 before, given his rare combination of power and speed.

Harper, though, came up two stolen bases short during his rookie season in 2012 - he might have done it had he not spent the first three weeks of April at Triple-A Syracuse instead of the majors - and he came up nine steals short in 2013, when injuries limited him to 118 games.

It was that penchant for getting hurt that prompted Harper to curtail much of his running the last two seasons. He stole only two bases in 2014, only six last season while winning MVP honors.

This spring, though, the Nationals encouraged the slugger to be more aggressive on the bases, provided he was smart about it. With tutelage from new first base coach Davey Lopes (one of the most accomplished basestealers in MLB history) Harper added this element to his already diverse game.

"I think Davey has done a great job helping him out," teammate Ryan Zimmerman said. "Davey works really hard with all those guys. I think for him to be able to ... I don't want to say add that to his game, because he's always been able to steal bases and has been capable of that ... but to learn that side of that game and work hard on that, I'm happy for him."

Dusty Baker has been a proponent of Harper running more from the get-go, and the veteran manager said Marlins hitting coach Barry Bonds (a 10-time member of the 20-20 club during his playing career) also encouraged Harper to steal more bases this season.

Baker sees an added benefit to it for Harper.

"It forces them to pitch to him more," the manager said. "If he wasn't stealing, then they'd just walk him, and it'd be no big deal. But now, the threat of him stealing ..."

Baker did quickly point out Harper still has some things to learn. Most notably, how to slide without risking serious injury.

"He still needs to work on sliding so he doesn't hurt himself, because he's not an excellent slider yet," Baker said. "We'll work on that next spring."