'All cake': Bryce Harper answers Orlando Arcia's barbs – and lifts Phillies to verge of NLCS

PHILADELPHIA – For Bryce Harper, the pain of a game-ending baserunning blunder was a privilege.

So, too, were the mocking words directed at him from Atlanta Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia, which lit a fuse among Harper’s Philadelphia Phillies teammates and perhaps, unintentionally, flipped the narrative in this rollicking National League Division Series between two of baseball’s most imposing heavyweights.

The expectations, the adulation, the trash talking – it is all in the game for Harper, and he is grateful for every morsel.

And so is responding to it all with two ferocious swings that turned around his team’s season.

When Harper obliterated a baseball and framed it against the fading sunshine of Citizens Bank Park and into a merry throng in the second deck Wednesday night, the anxiety that the Philadelphia Phillies’ season was in danger, the worry that they’d awoken a 104-win juggernaut, the very specter their season could end the next day had passed.

In Game 3 of this National League Division Series, Harper delivered one of the greatest prove-it performances in recent playoff history, hitting a go-ahead home run and adding a second homer later, staring down his newfound nemesis all the way as the Phillies defeated the Atlanta Braves 10-2 in Game 3 of their National League Division Series.

Philadelphia can win the series and advance to the NL Championship Series with a victory in Game 4 Thursday night, as Atlanta starts its 281-strikeout ace, Spencer Strider, hoping to fend off elimination.

Before Game 3, it was the Phillies pondering their own mortality, with Harper’s small part in their predicament looming over a city always fretting about its squads.

Instead, they tied a postseason record by hitting six home runs, and Harper and Nick Castellanos became just the fourth set of teammates to homer twice in a playoff game.

All this came in front of a delirious crowd of 45,798 and just two nights after the most soul-crushing loss of this glorious two-year playoff run, still cocksure but in need of a balm that perhaps only their thunderous crowd and their biggest superstar could provide.

Game 2 ended with Harper getting caught off first base, his own daring baserunning and Braves center fielder Michael Harris’ catch all complicit in the first 8-5-3 double play in playoff history, capping Atlanta’s 5-4 triumph in stunning fashion.

Afterward, Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia dared revel in his opponent’s misfortune, watching a clubhouse replay of the sequence and reportedly saying, “Haha, attaboy, Harper!”

It wasn’t the biggest slight, nor one Arcia intended for public consumption.

No matter. Harper was, shall we say, Jordanesque in both his reception and his response.

As Harper rounded the bases, he gave the standard salutes, to the bullpen as he rounded first and his family as he pulled into home. But along the way, as he crossed second base – the exact spot on the diamond that did him so wrong in Game 3 – he tilted his head and stared at Arcia, who, as fate would have it, happened to be staring down, fiddling with his glove.

Mad? No. Harper loves it all, from back-and-forths to caustic sports talk radio – he realizes the narrative only amplifies his significant accomplishments.

“It’s a super competitive game that we play,” he says. “And I enjoy commentary and things. I listen to WIP, and you hear a lot of stuff on there as well at times. And I just enjoy it.”

A swing game in a playoff series is always motivation enough. Yet these are humans playing the game, with a strange capability to somehow find a higher level of incentive.

Especially when challenged.

“I mean, anytime anybody says something, right? I mean that's what it's all about,” says Harper.

“I mean I stared right at him.”

When the Phillies were done circling the bases and the Braves pushed to the edge of elimination, Harper’s actions spoke for themselves – and his legacy in Philly is getting too loud to ignore.

'This is all cake, man'

Harper now has nine home runs and 18 RBI in 22 postseason games for Philadelphia, slashing .350/.441/.775 with a 1.216 OPS. And the Game 3 result only burnished Citizens Bank’s rep as a house of horrors for opponents: Philadelphia is now 25-11 all-time at the Bank, the best winning percentage (.694) in postseason history for venues that have hosted at least 30 games.

Combine that with his 306 career home runs, his two MVPs and his seven All-Star appearances, and it’s abundantly obvious Harper is probably even better than imagined when he graced the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 16, enrolled early in junior college and was determined to be baseball’s top draft pick.

Those career aspirations, that Hall of Fame talk? Harper says cool it – he’s barely halfway done, and hopes to play into his mid-40s (his contract may leave him little choice).

Yet those early expectations? They were heavy, Harper said Wednesday night, but they are gone, leaving only joy.

“I'm so thankful that I'm able to play this game,” says Harper. “I'm so thankful to be able to have these moments and these opportunities. There's nothing like growing up and playing the game of baseball. When I was 10 years old, 11 years old, I played in so many big tournaments and big lights. And I mean, you guys couldn't imagine the pressure of the situations or going to (junior college) early and having everybody in the world relying on you to be the No. 1 pick. That was hard.

“You know, 17 years old, 16 years old, trying to be the No. 1 pick, knowing that if you're not, you're a failure. So that's pressure, you know. Trying to make all the money you can to get your family out of an area or set them up for life, that's pressure.

“This is all cake, man. This is so much fun. Man, it’s not pressure anymore when you're just playing and having fun. Those moments - all the pressure is gone.”

'I love this place'

It doesn’t hurt that Harper, a central figure since elementary school, is now surrounded by superstars. As Phillies owner John Middleton planted his flag by signing Harper to a 13-year, $330 million deal before the 2019 season, it was just a prelude.

A billion-dollar, multiyear spree surrounded Harper with sluggers like Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber, a superstar shortstop like Trea Turner, an ace in Zack Wheeler, and young stars like his good friend Bryson Stott emerging.

Together, they are unstoppable at Citizens Bank Park.

The Phillies are 9-2 at home in the 2022 and ’23 postseasons, when Harper and Co. broke a decade-long playoff drought.

They also have a habit of pummeling Atlanta here.

A year ago, the Phillies won Game 1 in Atlanta and lost Game 2 – before sweeping two at Philly to win the NLDS. That 9-1 romp in Game 3 was marked by Aaron Nola’s steady six-inning outing and Rhys Hoskins’ emphatic bat spike.

The Phillies have outscored Atlanta 27-6 in three playoff games the past two years. Last year’s NLDS conquest sprung Philly all the way to Game 6 of the World Series.

It was partially a destiny fulfilled for Harper, who never got past the NLDS as a Washington National. Yet this is his forever home, sealed by a contract stretching longer than a decade, with no opt-outs.

In Year 5, the love affair is only just coalescing.

“I love this place. Flat out, I love this place,” says Harper. “There's nothing like coming into the Bank and playing in front of these fans. Blue collar mentality, tough, fighting every single day. I get chills, man. I get so fired up.

“I signed here for a reason, to do everything I could to bring back a trophy to this town, to Mr. Middleton, to this organization. I got chills thinking about it, because that's what it's all about. I love every single person in this organization, fighting, clawing every single day to get back to that moment.

“I could go on and on, man. There's nothing like playing here, and (backup catcher) Garrett Stubbs said it best, man. If you don't like it, you can get out, because we don't want you here, and we want to be able to come in each night and play our game, and they are with us in this every single step of the way.”

They will need them Thursday.

Standing in their way: Strider, who pitched well in Game 1, but got no run support. Now, he’s faced with reviving a Braves season that saw them win 104 games, 14 more than the Phillies, yet are faced with another bitter end at the hands of their NL East adversaries.

None loom larger than Harper, with whom Arcia decided to mess with after Game 2.

In Game 3, he found out.

'What are you going to do?'

For his part, Arcia said he did not intend for Harper to hear his cackles, and that things he says in the clubhouse are intended to stay there, apparently forgetting that dozens of media members are admitted some 15 minutes after playoff games end.

Castellanos believes the Phillies were fortunate they did not go silently in that Atlanta night, but rather with a chastened Harper trodding off the field through a maze of giddy Braves, the loss a punch in the face for so many reasons.

“I think that the way the game ended in Atlanta was perfect, because I think that that jolt of emotion and kind of seeing them really celebrate kind of set the tone for this game,” says Castellanos. “There’s never a normal way to lose a game, but having that exclamation point on the loss I think was perfect for our group of guys.”

And then Arcia’s words were distributed to the masses.

“He goes about his day the same way, but sometimes he has a certain look,” says second baseman and fellow Las Vegan Bryson Stott. “That look says he’s ready to go.”

Harper was asked how he found out about Arcia’s comments, whether he stumbled upon them online or via text or whatnot. Naturally, his lads were all too eager to bring him up to speed.

“They just kind of told me, and they looked at me, and they were like, ‘What are you going to do?'”

As he almost always has, Harper had the answer.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bryce Harper heroics, Phillies push Braves to brink in MLB playoffs