Harper stays patient as teams intentionally walk him

Every time Bryce Harper does something that seems straight out of a video game, we wonder the same question: Will there ever come a point where opposing teams simply don't give the young slugger any opportunity to swing the bat in any situation of consequence?

We got a bit of a taste last night what that would be like, when the Phillies walked Harper three times (twice intentionally). Even then, though, manager Pete Mackanin couldn't follow through all the way with his game plan and wound up letting his guy pitch to Harper twice.

The most notable example, of course, came with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the game on the line. The Nationals trailed 4-3, with Anthony Rendon on first base, Harper at the plate and the pitcher's spot due up following a double-switch earlier that took Ryan Zimmerman out of the game.

Conventional baseball wisdom says you never purposely put the tying run in scoring position (or the winning run on base at all) but few would have questioned Mackanin if he had done just that, pitching to Stephen Drew with two men on instead of Harper with one man on. Instead, he let Jeanmar Gomez go right after Harper and ultimately watched as his closer got the best hitter on the planet to ground out weakly to third on the eighth pitch of a tough at-bat.

"I wasn't going to walk him and put the tying run at second, where a single could tie the game," Mackanin told reporters afterward.

Harper and Gomez had squared off only nine days prior in Philadelphia, with Harper getting the best of the right-hander and homering off a 3-2 sinker over the heart of the plate. This tie, Gomez threw Harper seven consecutive sinkers, watching as the MVP fouled off four in a row before taking another outside to even the count at 2-2.

For pitch No. 8, Gomez finally changed things up. Literally. His 81-mph changeup was waist-high, but it started over the center of the plate and then moved just off the plate. Harper couldn't resist swinging, but he could only make weak contact, grounding out to the third baseman to end the game.

"I took a good swing on it," Harper said. "If he started it a little bit more at me, I probably could've hit it in the gap or something like that. But it was a good changeup, a good pitch, and it got me."

Harper was focused more on pitches earlier in the at-bat he felt were hittable.

"I was pretty upset I didn't really put the barrel on the ball," he said. "I had some pitches that I could've drove, and I just didn't make it happen. You can't hit a homer every time, but I definitely had two or three pitches that I could've drove out of the yard and just fouled them straight back."

So it was that Harper failed to deliver with the game on the line, much to the dismay of the 25,097 in attendance who have come to expect nothing but brilliance from the 23-year-old.

At least he got the opportunity, something that didn't happen much last night. Three times the Phillies walked Harper, the second and third times in intentional fashion. In each case, first base was unoccupied, giving Philadelphia the freedom to avoid him.

The crowd booed each time Harper was walked, but he has a more mature approach to the whole situation.

"I have a really big faith in Zim and the guys behind me," Harper said. "I don't mind getting on base. If that's a walk or an intentional walk or a hit or whatever, I just want to get on base the best I can, the most I can for the guys behind me. Just take it one day at a time, go out there tomorrow and if he throws me a ball over the plate, I'll try to him them. And if they don't, then I'll just take my walks."

Get ready for a whole lot more of that over the next five-plus months.