Major League Baseball

2022 MLB Playoffs: Bryce Harper delivers, powers Phillies into World Series

Updated Oct. 23, 2022 11:35 p.m. ET

By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer

PHILADELPHIA — This is everything Bryce Harper was supposed to be.

He entered our lives as the brash, overconfident, immensely talented 16-year-old on the cover of Sports Illustrated in June 2009. Dubbed "Baseball’s Chosen One," Harper was introduced as a generational talent with otherworldly power. Someone who could conjure magic on a ballfield, someone who could make the sport his own.

Those are lofty expectations for a high school sophomore.

In the years since. Harper has gone from child to adult, boy to man, prospect to present. The childish, gratuitous smudges of eye-black on his face have been replaced by a shrubbery-thick beard. He has kids now. Over the past 11 seasons, he has enthralled two cities and the world with his exploits, his theatrics and that trademark, high-energy swing — so violent, yet somehow, so dialed.

Through it all, Harper has carried himself with the confidence and bravado of a man who knows that he was put on this earth to hit baseballs hard and far.

Phillies advance to World Series by defeating Padres 4-3 in Game 5

The Philadelphia Phillies advanced to the World Series for the first time since 2009 with their NLCS win over the San Diego Padres in Game 5.

On Sunday, under a gray and gloomy Philadelphia sky, Harper fulfilled that birthright.

With his good friend J.T. Realmuto on first base and the Phillies down 3-2 late in NLCS Game 5, Harper strolled to the plate for the biggest at-bat of his life. San Diego’s Robert Suárez and his high-90s fuel stood 60 feet, 6 inches away, a distance Harper has come to know very well.

After fouling off a quartet of Suárez heaters, Harper scoffed at a below-zone change-up to push the count to 2-2. He knew Suárez would come back with a fastball, his best pitch. And so, on the seventh pitch of the at-bat, the $330 million man uncorked a thunderbolt that nobody in attendance will ever forget.

Harper’s 30 years on this planet have been defined by that hack, by his unique ability to impact a ball with unfathomable force. But no single swing of his life has carried more weight than or meant as much to as many as his final one Sunday.

The ball flashed off Harper’s bat, toward the third row in left field and down onto a horde of Phillies fans suddenly taken over by total lunacy. Phillies 4, Padres 3.

Bryce Harper launches a two-run home run to give Phillies the lead

The Philadelphia Phillies took a 4-3 lead over the San Diego Padres after Bryce Harper launched a two-run home run to left.

His teammates lost all control. Alec Bohm sprinted up the dugout steps onto the field. Bryson Stott leaped over the railing. Rhys Hoskins jumped onto Jean Segura. José Alvarado bounced into the air like a small child on a trampoline. Kyle Schwarber screamed "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD" to no one in particular.

But while the Phillies and their fans went berserk, sent into sports psychosis by a single swing, the man behind the madness stayed tranquil. After admiring his handiwork, Harper turned toward his dugout with an expressionless look on his face, gestured toward the bubble-script "Phillies" across his chest and, without a single show of emotion, began that all-familiar trot around the bases, the only calm presence in a stadium of maniacs.

You see, most people only dream of moments like that. But Harper? He expected it.

"He was always different from the rest of us, man," Nick Castellanos, who played with Harper as teenagers on Team USA, told FOX Sports.

"He’s a f---ing showman. Bryce Harper is a f---ing showman," backup catcher Garrett Stubbs screamed when asked why Harper didn’t celebrate his series-winning blast.

"He’s been destined to be THE guy, a Hall of Famer, a champion, his whole life," Hoskins said.

Bryce Harper wins NLCS MVP after Phillies defeat Padres

Bryce Harper talked to Tom Verducci after winning NLCS MVP and reflected on what it means to bring the NL pennant to Philadelphia.

Before Harper took Citizens Bank Park to Mars, the mood was tense, firmly grounded. Down 2-0 after Hoskins’ fifth homer of the postseason gave the Phillies an early lead, the Padres had battled to take a 3-2 lead heading into the eighth behind a Juan Soto solo shot and a bizarre seventh-inning rally that included two passed balls from Seranthony Dominguez.

San Diego entered the eighth with its second-best reliever, Suárez, on the mound and its best, Josh Hader, hot in the bullpen. Exactly how skipper Bob Melvin would’ve drawn it up.

But when Realmuto knocked a leadoff single to bring Harper up as the go-ahead run, Melvin opted to stick with Suárez over the lefty Hader, who hasn’t allowed an earned run since Sept. 5. Still, if you ask the Phillies, it didn’t matter whom Melvin went with. Harper was simply too good, too focused, too determined to make history.

"He was locked the f--- in up there," Castellanos said.

"He was on another level today," GM Sam Fuld shared. "The level of concentration and calm as he put that swing on that ball — and really that entire at-bat. Even as he’s rounding the bases, you could see that the moment was his. That’s the stuff that legends are made of. He just cemented himself in playoff history."

Bryce Harper talks with Ben Verlander after the win

Ben Verlander chats with Bryce Harper after his epic home run helped the Phillies punch their ticket to the World Series.

In the loud, soggy mayhem of the postgame celebration, Realmuto found Harper. Crude country pop blared from the clubhouse speakers. It was an odd setting for a heartfelt embrace, but such is the MLB postseason. Realmuto, despite being a year older than Harper, remembers reading that Sports Illustrated article in high school and admits that he has looked up to Harper ever since.

And so, Realmuto hugged his buddy close and let him know how much he appreciates him.

"I’m always amazed by you," the all-star catcher, one of the game's most freakish athletes himself, yelled over the music into Harper’s ear. "You’re just incredible, man."

Harper nodded and hugged him back.

The Phillies pop champagne and celebrate

The Phillies celebrate advancing to the World Series by popping champagne and singing Calum Scott's cover of "Dancing on my Own."

For decades now, people have been telling Harper how incredible he is, how prodigious his talents are. He knows, too. That’s part of why baseball has always looked outrageously simple to him, like it was designed specifically for him.

At 16, he hit a ball 502 feet at Tropicana Field, the longest in stadium history. A year later, he graduated high school before his junior year and became the best junior college player in the country. As a 22-year-old for the Nationals in 2015, he crushed 42 home runs and won MVP. He has hit 285 big-league homers. There are many more to come. Harper’s 30th birthday was last week, and he shows no signs of slowing.

And now, he and his team are going to the World Series.

"We got four more games," Harper reminded the crowd Sunday as he accepted his NLCS MVP trophy.

This is a man who fully understands who he is and what he means — both to this team and to his sport. He has spoken at length this postseason about how jacked up he gets for games, how he feels most comfortable when the lights are brightest and the noise is cranked up to a billion.

In those instances, he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink. This is the game he was born to play, the legacy he was meant to build, the home runs he was destined to hit.

And he isn’t finished yet.

Jake Mintz, the louder half of @CespedesBBQ is a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. Follow him on Twitter @Jake_Mintz.