Originally Posted by
rasputin
I'm curious how Nats fans view Harper's antics. I was fairly neutral rooting-wise for the Nats-Giants series, except that a Giants win meant home field advantage for the Cardinals in the NLCS.
Anyway, after looking at Harper's behavior post-home run yesterday, I think I dislike him every bit as much as Puig, and that takes some doing. Grow up.
Originally Posted by
mkirsh
Grow up is definitely part of it - he's only 21 so he gets a somewhat of a pass in my book for the occasional outbursts (like yelling at the ump in game 2), and in general he seems to be a well liked teammate, hard worker, and mostly professional in his approach to the game. I hope over time he does mature a little and cut down on the antics, but at the same time want him to keep playing with passion and emotion as aside from him and Gio it is a very laid back team - Werth, Laroche, Ramos, Desmond, both Zimmermans all seem fairly stoic, so the fire needs to come from someplace.
Is Bryce still the youngest player in the majors? There is no question in my mind that Bryce is an unusual character. I also believe Matt Williams made a huge mistake early this year in pulling him out of a game and publicly scolding him for failing to run out a ground ball. The upshot: he returned to the lineup and played like a madman -- not in a good way. His teammates after the benching told reporters privately that Harper was totally out of control. He then messed up his thumb in a too aggressive slide into 3B and, basically, without hand strength a slugger loses his power, so he lost not only time but also productivity after he returned. When he returned to the lineup, oh my, he announced he wanted to play CF, where Denard Span was doing pretty well already.
Bryce has now regained his power, and I think he will bat fourth next season instead of sixth, and perhaps that promotion will settle him down. And Jee-zuss! What's wrong with a little emotion in baseball, especially by a guy whose slugging percentage was 0.882 during the playoffs??
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013