Harper is unsuccessful in his debut, but Phils exceeds Braves

PHILADELPHIA – In his Philly Phillies debut on Thursday, Bryce Harper looked like a $ 330 million man of the people. He was wearing fluorescent green shoes that paid tribute to the Phillie Phanatic, leaned in front of the fans by chanting his name before the first pitch of the season and threw a ball into the stands for the perfect remembrance of the day. opening.

The only thing missing were the hits.

Harper went on a walk in his first game with the Phillies, who still concocted a lot of offense in a 10-4 win over defending National League champion Atlanta Braves.

The decision to intentionally walk Harper in the seventh inning to charge the bases went against him almost instantly. Rhys Hoskins, the clean-up striker, beat Luke Jackson 88km / h over the Citizens Bank Park left-field wall for his first career grand slam.

Harper savored his trot around the bases, lifting the ground with his custom studded boots and scoring the first inning of many Phillies uniforms. When Harper signed a $ 330 million, 13-year contract with the Phillies in early March, he said he wanted to stay in Philadelphia for the rest of his career.

The city took him immediately. From Reading Terminal Market to South Philly and beyond, fans wore the Harper 3 jersey, which was announced by Major League Baseball earlier in the day as the sport's bestseller, despite Harper spending less from a month in Philadelphia. They chanted his name – "Har-per, Har-per, Har-per" – and the urge to see him hit his sixth career match in day one.

His first match with Philadelphia, after seven seasons with his divisional rival, Washington, will come soon. In his first game, with a crowd of 44,469, Harper returned a slider from Julio Tehran to get a first-place spot. Despite incredible success against Tehran, Harper entered the game with more circuitry and a better score than any other baseball pitcher. to conclude the third.

He made no substantial contribution until the fourth time in his career – and even then it was far from a storybook. Harper simply admired the shot probably shot by Hoskins as well as the contributions of the two new additions to Philadelphia that preceded him in the formation: first hitter Andrew McCutchen, who played his first game of the Phillies, and Jean Segura, who went 2-for-4 and scored a pair of tracks.