Some have been high, some low, but all have been right around the edge of the plate and almost all of them have ended up over the right-field wall. The strange thing is that, other than how Harper’s slugging percentage over the last two weeks begins with a “2”, most of his homers during this streak have come on outside pitches that he’s pulled. Which, that’s where the ball goes when a left-handed hitter pulls it. More specifically, he is crushing the ball to right field. I spent some time going over his heat maps and you will be further shocked to learn he’s crushing the ball. 959 OPS - or, if you prefer meaningful numbers, a 164 wRC+ - over the past four seasons, so let’s all take what the kids call a chill pill. It takes true talent to OPS almost 2.000 in a 12 game span.īut all this isn’t nearly enough to make up for three seasons where his chief rival was essentially the MVP (remember the dust thing?). Harper’s slash line is silly now, but if the statistical revolution in baseball has taught us anything, it’s to beware of small sample sizes. The reality is some times players string hits together and put up super-human slash lines. Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post outlines some more of these mini-hot streaks here. From July 19 through August 2 of the same season, he hit. But maybe we shouldn’t be quite so sure about it because he’s kinda done this before.Ĭonsider: from April 17 through April 27 of 2013, Harper hit. And we should be excited about what he’s done. We’re all up in arms, screaming on talk radio, slamming our fat little fingers into the keys, all in excitement over Harper’s coming of age. So this thing is back on, right? The match-up of the century that turned out as one-sided as the tortoise versus the hare, as Tyson versus Spinks, as boxing versus human decency, is, it turns out, not over after all. You have to scroll down and scroll down and scroll down all… the… way… to… seventh before you find Trout languishing with just 2.0 WAR. Harper’s binge has put him at 3.1 WAR on the season, 0.5 WAR ahead of second place Dee Gordon which is a weird thing to write, but whatever. These are silly things done by a silly man who flaunts the realities of baseball before mashing them like a child playing with insects on a sidewalk. Yes, his slugging percentage starts with a number before the decimal.
Yes, his home run-to-strikeout ratio is 2:1. On that Wednesday, Harper went 3-for-5 with three home runs.
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