On Harper's homers, Taylor's table-setting and the Mets

ST. LOUIS - More thoughts on Sunday night's 7-2 Nationals victory at Busch Stadium before heading home ...

* Does any major league hitter enjoy playing on the big stage more than Bryce Harper? We've seen Harper go bonkers on opening day. We've seen him come through on Independence Day. We've seen him launch towering home runs in the postseason.

And we saw him show off in front of a national television audience Sunday night.

Harper homered in each of his first two at-bats, twice connecting off Cardinals ace (and All-Star) Carlos Martinez to provide the Nationals an early 4-0 lead.

Martinez is no piece of cake for a batter to face. Especially with two strikes. Not that it fazed Harper one bit. His first homer came on a 2-2 pitch. His second came on an 0-2 pitch.

"Martinez is really good," Harper said. "He's an All-Star. He's been really good for the last couple years. Throws hard. Does things out there that many guys can't do. So I try to go out there and put the bat on the ball, and hopefully he'll supply the power a little bit and you get lucky and get a pitch you can drive. And we were able to do that pretty early on."

Harper's impressive feat wasn't lost upon his manager.

"That's big, especially against a guy like Martinez on the other side," Dusty Baker said. "Cause you let him get rolling, it could've been the opposite. This guy, he doesn't give up many runs. And it was 4-0 Harp by the third inning. That was real big. You don't want to face Martinez every day, because you're not going to do that to him every day."

* Both of Harper's homers were two-run homers thanks to the efforts of the guys in front of him in the lineup getting on base.

Baker has taken some heat for batting Brian Goodwin and Michael A. Taylor in the top two slots with Trea Turner, Adam Eaton and Jayson Werth all now on the disabled list, but the veteran manager believes both outfielders have the ability to do damage atop the order and set the table for the big boppers behind them.

What happened in Sunday's game? Goodwin led things off with a double down the right field line, then advanced to third on Taylor's well-executed sacrifice bunt. Two innings later, it was Taylor drawing a leadoff walk in advance of Harper's second homer.

Taylor also added an opposite-field single later in the game.

The Nationals will need more of all of that as they try to compensate for the long-term loss of three key table-setters.

* The Nationals close out the first half of the season with a seven-game homestand against the Mets and Braves. They may not seem like huge games, but those are the two clubs directly behind the Nats in the standings right now, with Atlanta 7 1/2 games back and New York in third place at 9 1/2 games back.

Both remain under .500, but both have been playing well for several weeks to at least offer up a hint of a threat to the division leaders.

"We're going back home to face the Mets and the Braves, two division opponents that we need to beat and win those games," Harper said. "Hopefully, we can go back and do the things we need to do as a team, as a club."

The pitching matchups against the Mets: Stephen Strasburg versus Steven Matz in Monday's 6:05 p.m. opener, Joe Ross against Seth Lugo in Tuesday's 11:05 a.m. Independence Day matinee and Tanner Roark versus Jacob deGrom in Wednesday's 7:05 p.m. finale.