PHILADELPHIA — The heavy bat is scuffed and littered with dents because it is more than 2 years old. There is an unexplained blue mark beneath the barrel of a 34-inch, 35-ounce Victus bat that belongs to Bryce Harper and was never supposed to see real game action.
Few would swing a 35-ounce bat in a Major League Baseball game in 2026 because pitchers throw faster than ever. In reality, Harper said, the thing must weigh more than 35 ounces because he has used it as part of his regular pregame routine in the indoor cage for so long. Moisture has infiltrated the wood, causing it to expand.
“It’s enormous,” Harper said. He grabbed the bat from his locker Saturday night, not long after he hit for the cycle in a 15-3 Philadelphia Phillies win over the New York Mets. He inspected the barrel.
He had always joked about using the heavy bat in a game — or at least his teammates and coaches had interpreted it as a joke. Harper usually swings a 34-inch, 31.5-ounce bat. But he had hit another ball to the warning track Thursday night, and he entered Saturday with one hit in his previous 22 at-bats.
So, before he decided to use the heavy bat, he went outside around 3 p.m. for early batting practice.
“At first,” Bryson Stott said, “we were kind of confused.”
Hustlin’ to his first career cycle pic.twitter.com/uwVdbxEB9u
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) June 21, 2026
It is rare to see Harper hit outside at Citizens Bank Park. He, like many of the game’s modern stars, believes the best pregame work is done in a more controlled setting indoors. But Harper decided to take some rips with Stott, Alec Bohm and J.T. Realmuto.
Harper put on a show. He hit one to the third deck in right field.
“I was wondering,” Bohm said, “if he was going to hit one out of the stadium.”
Harper didn’t have anything in particular he was practicing. That was the point.
“I was trying to hit homers,” Harper said. “Just trying to have some fun.”
He homered in his first at-bat against Freddy Peralta, the Mets’ No. 1 starter. He took a risk in the third inning and turned a single to right field into a double. Then, later in the eight-run inning, he singled to right. In the fifth inning, he tripled on a ball in left-center that required audacious base running. He went from home to third in 11.8 seconds.
“That was a Bryce Harper cycle,” Stott said. “The extra-base double. Then, the triple. That was sick. That was sick.”
As the Mets made a pitching change in the fifth inning with Harper due to hit and runners on first and second, Kyle Schwarber ambled back to the dugout.
“We all said it to him,” Stott said. “Kyle, you better run.”
Stott and Trea Turner, his double-play mate, had tried to foresee how it would happen. “Where are you going to hit your triple?” Turner had asked Harper in the fourth or fifth inning. Stott told Harper he had to hit the angled part of the wall in center field.
“Then,” Stott said, “he hit the ball into left-center, and we were like, ‘Oh, no. This isn’t the one.’”
It was not, by any standards, a normal triple. Harper would have been out by at least 30 feet had the cutoff man not fired home. But Harper never stopped running, and by definition, he did not advance to third on the throw home.
“It was a perfect storm,” Stott said.
The ball stuck near the bottom of the fence. It was a 10-run game, but Schwarber gunned it from first base. He is not the fastest runner, and that meant there would be a play at the plate. With anyone else running home, the cutoff man is probably thinking about Harper at third.
When Harper is feeling good, he’ll take risks on the bases. He will not apologize for it.
“I’ll tell you what: I don’t really care what people think about my base running because that’s how I’ve always played,” Harper said. “I’ve done it since I was 7 years old. I don’t really play a different way when I know I can try to get to second base. I’ve made mistakes on the bases. I’m going to. Little kids are going to do the same thing. And I’ll preach to them that they just play the game hard. If they get thrown out at second or third, then so be it. If I don’t do that tonight, then I don’t have the opportunity to hit for a cycle.”
Schwarber hit three home runs, including two in one inning that totaled 913 feet. The Phillies’ two stars matched each other with incredible feats. And it was Schwarber’s running that helped Harper finish the cycle.
“We were all focused on just trying to make sure that he gets to third base there,” Schwarber said.
“He was busting it,” Harper said. “So I appreciate it. I mean, he jogged a lot tonight, so to be able to bust it around third like that for me, I definitely appreciate it.”
He laughed. Harper’s cycle was the 11th in Phillies history and the first since Weston Wilson’s in 2024. They had some fun with it.
The Phillies were the second team in MLB history to have a player hit for the cycle and a player hit three homers in the same game. The other: The 1932 New York Yankees, who had a Tony Lazzeri cycle and four homers from Lou Gehrig. The Phillies had a brief champagne toast afterward. They won by 12 runs. It was a good night.
When he reached third base, Harper shouted. He raised his arms to the sky. He showed emotion that the Phillies have not seen in 2026.
It is easy to want to ascribe greater meaning to Harper’s moods. His teammates do it. So do his coaches. People study Harper for the slightest hint of how he’s feeling, but often, he’ll laugh the most when he is struggling on the field. He was upset by his fifth at-bat, two innings after the cycle, because he chased a pitch out of the zone and grounded out. He carried the 35-ounce bat with him all the way to first base.
Harper, 33, is not the kid he was when he debuted. He’s not even the guy who came to Philadelphia in his mid-20s. So much has changed. But there is so much Harper must still accomplish to fulfill the prophesies. The cycle, his first since he was in junior college, is but a footnote.
Maybe Harper will think about everything that preceded it — the carefree hitting session outdoors and the heavy bat.
“I just felt like I needed to stay through the ball a little bit more,” Harper said. “I was able to do that.”
Phil Sheridan, the team’s director of clubhouse services, approached Harper after the game. He wanted to ensure everything was properly authenticated from Harper’s historic night. Sheridan saw the heavy bat.
“Are you using this tomorrow?” Sheridan asked.
“Yes,” Harper said.
“Are you going to order more?” Sheridan asked.
“Yes,” Harper said.
He had a text message to send.
