After signing a 13-year, $330 million contract over the offseason, Bryce Harper’s had a rough start — at least for his standards — to his Philadelphia Phillies career. The outfielder entered play on Saturday with a .222/.363/.430 slash line (and a particularly bad stretch lately), and a career-worst 31.1 K% (something that’s magnified when the huge power numbers aren’t coming with it). He’s even heard boos from Phillies fans already, and was called out by teammate Jake Arrieta for being ejected in a recent game.
But on the first pitch Harper saw from Colorado Rockies pitcher Antonio Senzatela on Saturday, he showed why he got that massive contract, and why better times are surely ahead for him offensively.
Harper obliterated a 94-mph fastball from Senzatela and hit it over the freakin’ batter’s eye in center field at Citizens Bank Park. This is an absolute bomb, with Statcast measuring it at 466 feet (if anything, that seems short) with a 114-mph exit velocity. The call from an astonished Tom McCarthy — the Phillies’ play-by-play man for NBC Sports Philadelphia — summarizes the magnitude of this dinger.
Bryce OVER the batter's eye. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/b3Lluj0neQ
— MLB (@MLB) May 18, 2019
Bryce Harper's HR went a projected 466 feet, his 2nd-longest HR tracked by Statcast (since 2015).
The 114.1 mph exit velocity was his 3rd-hardest hit HR tracked by Statcast. pic.twitter.com/kyLBVEWr40
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) May 18, 2019
What a blast.