Bryce Harper on another ninth-inning game-saving home run

Bryce Harper has a flair for the dramatic and Sunday he added to the record books with his ninth homer of the season.

With his team down 4-3 in the ninth, Harper, on his scheduled day off, faced Twins closer Kevin Jepsen and launched a 3-2 fastball over the right-center field wall for a game-tying homer.

The home run saved his team again.

Eventually, Chris Heisey, who had replaced Harper after that pinch-hit homer, smacked his first walk-off home run of his career as the Nationals dropped the Twins 6-5 in 16 innings.

It was the longest regular season game in Nationals history, clocking in at five hours and 56 minutes.

Before the game started, manager Dusty Baker had wanted to give Harper a day off Sunday.

His plan was to use him only if and when the game was on the line. But as soon as that at-bat was over, he wanted to give his young star more rest, especially with a full day off Monday.

"What a great home run by Harp," Baker said. "I told him before the game I was going to save him toward the end of the game and only pinch-hit him because I told him about the time that I had put Barry Bonds in on a day off.

"We ended up going 18 innings, so I told (Harper) I didn't want that to happen to him. We almost went 18 innings. He came up to me and he goes, 'I'd been six innings deep on this day off in the 15th.' "

Harper described what he was told by Baker as the game got closer to the ninth inning with his team cutting a 4-1 deficit down to 4-3.

"They told me the inning before I was just sitting down there in the tunnel with my (batting gloves) on and my bat in my hand and just wondering if I was going to get an opportunity," Harper said.

"The next thing he told me right after that third out, you're up. So got an opportunity to get up there and go have a good at-bat against Jepsen and get a pitch that I can do some damage with and hit a homer."

Harper then got words of advice from his hitting coach, Rick Schu, as he approached the plate. Harper knew to look out for Jepsen's curveball and fastball.

"I was thinking curveball the whole time," Harper said. "He's got a big 12-6 curveball, so I just thought possibly opportunity where he was going to throw that, possibly hang it, and he gave me a pitch 3-2 and I know that he likes his heater, that's what Schu told me right before I went to the plate, that he loves to establish his heater as well. So I got a pitch 3-2 that I can handle and stayed right where I need to be."

Harper did get a lot of time off on Sunday.

But most of the time, he ended up cheering for his teammates as they made one of the more thrilling comebacks, not once, but twice, in surprising the Twins.

"It was fun," Harper said. "That's baseball. Baseball at every single level, and if you're in high school, college, Little League, anything.

"To be able to have the opportunity to play for Dusty, that desire and that mentality that he brings every single day, to let us just have fun, to let us enjoy this game, with all the rally caps and all the stuff we're doing and just going crazy and everything you could imagine.

"That's where you understand that that's what you make to make baseball. "That's where that comes from: 'Make baseball fun again.' Right there."

How can Harper keep pulling off the impossible? A grand slam here, a walk-off there. Nine homers in his first 18 games following an MVP campaign.

"He believed that he was going to do it," Baker said. "That's what impressed me the most. Confidence is not his problem. You know what I mean? Anything he does, he doesn't seem surprised, and I'm not surprised. But I'm extremely happy, and I'm sure he is, too."