2024 MLB Playoffs: Bryce Harper and the Phillies' offense come back from the brink in epic NLDS Game 2 against the Mets

PHILADELPHIA – Bryce Harper rarely screams these days.

Not in anger, not in elation.

So often there is chaos around him. Nevertheless, the Phillies' leading man cuts a gentle figure and ensures a steady rhythm in the cacophony. Harper's strategy for overcoming the madness of his life and his job is to stay calm. And so his voice has become increasingly quiet over the years. Perhaps a product of the knowledge that his words now carry great weight.

When Harper made the swing of his life in October 2022 — the smash in NLCS Game 5 that punched his ticket to the World Series — he barely reacted. While his teammates streamed over the dugout railing like a horde of excited children, their faces glowing with joy, the game's greatest showman remained conspicuously nonchalant and completely expressionless. No words were needed that day; Actions spoke louder.

This time was a different story. This time Harper yelled. The moment, he surely knew, called for it.

Harper provided the electrifying moment in his team's 7-6 victory in NLDS Game 2 on Sunday – a two-run blast from the batter's eye in dead-center field. As he crossed home plate, the typically stoic Harper erupted and threw his right arm into the air. He then threw both hands to the sky as if to urge the 45,679 fans at Citizens Bank Park to get back into the game. His deafening “LET'S GO!” echoed across the upper reaches of the sold-out ballpark.

When a small voice roars, it can move mountains.

On Sunday, Harper's club was mired in a mud of offensive ineptitude for an hour and 58 minutes. A day after being embarrassed at home by the Mets in NLDS Game 1, the Phillies couldn't last five innings in Game 2. Each goalless end to the pitch only made the home crowd more frustrated and restless.

In the fourth, cleanup hitter Nick Castellanos was booed for hitting balls outside the strike zone. The walls closed; The air flowed out of the balloon. By the time Harper came to the plate with a runner on first in the sixth, doubt had taken over most of Citizens Bank Park. Understandably.

The Phillies' worst-case scenario swirled around in the minds of every soul caught up in that October baseball drama. The club's recent post-season performance confirms this. A year ago, the Phillies returned home for Game 6 of the NLCS needing a single win against the undermatched Arizona Diamondbacks to secure a berth in the World Series.

Then the Phillies collapsed under the weight of expectation. On successive nights, sellout crowds watched in horror as the club's star-studded, hard-hitting offense attacked ball after ball. The result was a shocking playoff exit that left a dark shadow over the final Phillies season, save for 95 wins and an NL East title.

On Sunday, every trip back to the dugout against a locked-in starter just brought back all those bad memories. The crowd sensed this dark energy and amplified it. Everyone needed a jolt to erase the doubt.

But you see, Bryce Harper has no doubts. He never did that. Philly's force of nature is a man fueled by an engine of unwavering confidence. That's why he can do what he does.

Harper's attack didn't win the game – or even tie it – but this hair-raising hack saved Philly from the brink. With a single swing and subsequent call to action, the man in the “SHOWMAN” headband woke the crowd from their frustrated slumber and single-handedly changed the narrative of this entire series.

“Getting on the board and getting the crowd back in,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said afterward of Harper’s home run. “Up until then I thought our hitting was similar to last night, and then I thought our hitting got a lot better. We started getting guys back in the zone and attacking and using the field.”

Harper's home run also opened a door to chaos, turning a nervy pitchers' duel into a roller-coaster title game for the ages. The next batter, Castellanos, hit a game-winning home run into the left field seats. An eruption erupted at Citizens Bank Park, which had been shrouded in skepticism just moments before.

But the Mets, a runaway train fueled by grimace and timely punches and who knows what else, struck back immediately. In the seventh, outfielder Brandon Nimmo threw a low-middle fastball over the high right field wall to put New York back on top, 4-3. The Phillies then took the lead with a three-run rally in the eighth inning, punctuated by a crucial triple thanks to Harper's emotional protégé and fellow Las Vegan Bryson Stott on his 27th birthday.

On many evenings that would have been the final act.

Instead, the Phillies gave up their two-run lead two outs after an exhale. Mets third baseman Mark Vientos hit a chest-high heater over the left-center wall for a game-winning two-run home run. Vientos' second explosion of the night silenced the stunned crowd and once again sucked the life out of the building.

But as substitute Matt Strahm, the victim of Vientos' moonshot, explained to Yahoo Sports after the game, his club had already recovered from the mat. The Phillies knew they could do it again.

Strahm said he told Strahm not to worry when catcher JT Realmuto went to the mound before the pitcher was taken out of the game and the score was 6-6. The offense would catch up with him. Strahm knew Realmuto meant what he said.

This conversation would prove prescient. In the bottom of the frame, with two outs and Trea Turner on first, Harper drew a walk and brought Castellanos to the plate. The free-swinging outfielder finished the job by blasting a single down the left field line to score Turner, win the game and even the series.

Philadelphia roared like its talisman.

“I told the guys, I said, 'Rocky would be proud,'” Harper, ever the Philadelphian, told the media after the game. “Never die mentality, man.”

After he finished his postgame interview, Harper, showered and dressed, packed a duffel bag next to his locker. The double doors next to him swung open. Harper's five-year-old son Krew burst through the entrance, dressed in a No. 3 City Connect jersey with the family name on the back.

When Krew saw his hero and the hero of the night, he reared up and gave a seismic high-five. Dad offered the target; Krew dropped the hammer with joy. The two hugged and Bryce kissed his eldest on the head.

Then Krew looked up at his father and congratulated him in a hoarse voice, “Good game, Dad.”

Hell yeah, it was.