Sep 9, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies first base Bryce Harper (3) hits a single during the ninth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images Bill Streicher
By virtue of poor pitching — including the latest struggles from Taijuan Walker — the Phillies lost 10-4 to the Chicago Cubs Tuesday. The Phillies didn't trot out a hangover lineup, but Tanner Banks, Walker and Kolby Allard all struggled to varying degrees, so it essentially turned into a hangover game.
You could be forgiven if your employment isn't tied to watching the full games and decided to do something else when the game went south early last night. But if you did, you missed an interesting development late in the game.
Bryce Harper — who has been open about dealing with left elbow and wrist discomfort — seemed to change his stance rather drastically as the game went on. As it turns out, Harper had experimented with a similar look on Monday night. @BallGoBohm on X captured a screenshot that shows how different Harper's stance was in an at-bat Monday, which was similar to the look he went with late Tuesday night:
Compare that to what his stance was in the bottom of the first inning when he homered off of Justin Steele:
Even Harper's stance for the home run last night was adjustment from where he's normally at. This is his stance during an at-bat in his three-home run game against the Cincinnati Reds back in April.
Rob Thomson said after the game Tuesday that he didn't notice Harper had tweaked his batting stance. Harper wasn't one of the players who spoke to the media after the loss, although he probably wasn't requested considering his home run proved relatively inconsequential in the loss.
For now, this is just something to keep an eye on. If the elbow/wrist discomfort has at all slowed Harper's swing, starting in an adjusted position where there's a little less motion and he's already close to loaded could help him to overcome that.
It's worth noting that Harper would regularly make relatively noticeable tweaks to his batting stance during his first couple seasons with the Phillies. He's done that much less over the last few years, but it's not unprecedented. His stance for his walk-off grand slam agains the Cubs in August of 2019 looks different than anything he's used recently.
Harper is also very superstitious, even if he doesn't like to talk about it. He'll change cleats and batting gloves during a game once in a while. On other occasions, he'll come to the plate without batting gloves to try to change his fortunes. So this is someone who is always tweaking things to a degree. But as he tries to manage his elbow and wrist discomfort for another five weeks, any adjustments he makes to his stance will certainly be noticed.
