It may seem hard to believe now, but Bryce Harper has played in the same number of seasons with the Phillies as he did with the Washington Nationals. Harper has still played in more games with the Nationals, but a big part of that is because of the COVID shortened 2020 season. Nevertheless, it seems funny to say that after how synonymous he was with the Nats once upon a time.
2015 was Harper’s best season in Washington, as that’s when he won his first MVP award at just 22 years old and put up a career-best
9.7 WAR. He slugged a career high 42 home runs and led the league in OBP (.460), SLG (.649), and OPS (1.109) en route to one of the best seasons in recent memory.
A big part of his success that season was the 2015 Phillies. Harper played against his now current team 17 times back in 2015, and he took full advantage of their ineptitude to help pad his MVP numbers.
Harper’s 8 home runs and 16 RBIs against the Phillies in 2015 were his most against any team. He regularly victimized the Phillies 29th ranked pitching staff, as he slugged home runs against the likes of Aaron Harang and Sean O’Sullivan, the latter of which Harper took deep three times in 2015
One particularly torrid stretch came in a series played at Citizens Bank Park from September 15th to 17th. Harper hit four home runs in a three game series and went 7-13 (.538) at the plate. The Nationals swept the Phillies and outscored Philadelphia 24-9.
The first game of that series featured an 11 inning slugfest where both starting pitchers were roughed up. Jordan Zimmerman started for the Nats against a young rookie named Aaron Nola for the Phillies. Anthony Rendon led off the game against Nola with a home run, one of four to be hit by Washington in the game. Ryan Howard answered Rendon’s solo shot with one of his own in the second before Harper hit his first homer of the series in the third to put the Nats up once again. A Freddy Galvis single tied the game again in the third, and that’s how it would remain into the fifth.
That’s when Nola allowed three singles, one to his counterpart on the mound Zimmerman, another to Yunel Escobar, and finally one to Harper before allowing a grand slam to former Phillie Jayson Werth. That ultimately knocked Nola out of the game, but Zimmerman allowed the Phillies to get back into the game. A back-and-forth contest that included more home runs ultimately ended with an RBI fielder’s choice from Escobar against Luis Garcia, giving Washington an 8-7 win.
Game two of the series featured an eight inning, 14 strikeout, one hit performance from Stephen Strasburg in a 4-0 win. Harper knocked in all four runs for the Nats, going 3-3 with a walk on the day. He took David Buchanan deep in the first for a solo homer, then added an RBI single in the third and a two run homer off of Adam Loewen in the eighth.
The third and final game was a 12-2 laugher that started as a close contest. It was 2-2 in the fifth before Phillies starter Alec Asher, who was recently acquired in the Cole Hamels trade, allowed an RBI single to Rendon and an RBI double to Escobar to give Washington a 4-2 lead. Asher allowed a single to Harper, but Escobar was thrown out trying to score by Aaron Altherr.
Things got bad in the sixth when the Phillies bullpen relieved Asher. Hector Neris allowed a home run to Werth and an RBI double to Ian Desmond in the sixth before Harper tacked on another home run, a two run shot off of Justin De Fratus, to push the lead to 8-2. Harper was quiet the rest of the game but that didn’t stop Washington from adding on four more runs to finish off the sweep.
For his career, Bryce Harper hit .271 with an .847 OPS and 24 HR in 110 games against the Phillies. It’s pretty safe to say they were at least a small part of the reason that Harper was able to capture the 2015 NL MVP award. But at least Harper was able to repay the favor by signing in Philadelphia, where he’s hit .299 with a .930 OPS against the Nats, and winning another MVP in 2021.
