Very quietly, the Philadelphia Phillies put together a historic season for the franchise in 2024. Their 95-win finish was the club’s highest total since 2011, when the Phillies won 102 games, and the fourth-most wins in the club’s 141-year history. The Phillies won 101 in both 1976 and 1977, and 97 in 2010. But as in those other years, the Phillies failed to win a World Series championship, or even get to the Fall Classic.
In fact, in that history that dates back nearly a century-and-a-half, the Phillies have won only two championships â including in the 19th-century, pre-World Series days â and have made it all the way to the World Series just eight times, most recently in 2022 when they fell to the Houston Astros.
Coming off 2024’s 95-win season, which ended with an NL Division Series loss to the New York Mets, the Phillies enter 2025 with high expectations â and a high payroll. The third-highest payroll in MLB to be exact, at $279.3 million, trailing only the reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers at $321 million, and the Phillies’ NL East rivals the Mets whose signing of Juan Soto helped boost their payroll to $314.9 million.
Bad News for Bryce Harper as he Takes Pitch Off Triceps
That’s why it certainly looked like bad news on Wednesday when the player who is taking up over $25.5 million of that Phillies payroll in 2025, 32-year-old Bryce Harper â former NL Rookie of the Year in 2012 and MVP in 2021 â was forced to exit a spring training game after taking a 92 mph pitch off the upper right arm, just above the elbow.
The pitch bounced off of Harper’s arm toward his head, knocking his batting helmet off.
Harper, after playing his first seven years with the team that made him the overall No. 1 draft pick in 2010 out of Southern Nevada, the Washington Nationals, signed a 13-year, $330 million free agent contract with Philadelphia in 2019. After three mediocre years, things began to click for the Harper-led Phillies in 2022 when they got back to the World Series for the first time since 2009.
The team has made the playoffs in each of the two seasons since, but they will need a healthy Harper to keep that streak alive. Which may be why Harper glared into the host Toronto Blue Jays dugout after being plunked by 29-year-old journeyman left Richard Lovelady and asked the Jays, “What are you doing?” according to an account by The Athletic.
Harper Appears to Have Avoided Serious Injury
Fortunately, the bad news appears that it could have been a lot worse. According to Phillies manager Rob Thomson, Harper got away with nothing less than “bruised triceps.” The team was “not overly concerned at all,” the manager said.
But how long Harper will be out of action with the bruise was not certain as of Wednesday afternoon and the injury had yet to be fully examined by doctors.
The Harper mishap comes just two days after the utility man the Phillies were hoping would fill the fourth bench-player role, Weston Wilson, was ruled out for at least six weeks with a “freak” oblique muscle strain he suffered while taking a practice swing in the batting cage at Bay Care Ballpark in Clearwater, Florida â the Phillies spring training home.
âI spent a lot of time this offseason getting my body in the best shape possible,’ Wilson said, as quoted by MLB.com. “Just a freak accident. I didnât feel anything before, so, like, nothing warning me. Disappointment, I would say, is the biggest word. It sucks.”
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This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
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