PHILADELPHIA _ In the nearly six years since Sunday Night Baseball's last visit to town, the Phillies endured seasons of 89, 89, 99, 91, 96 and 82 losses. Citizens Bank Park all but fell off the national baseball grid. ESPN couldn't find the place with a compass, to say nothing of Google Maps.
Bryce Harper changed all that in three days.
Philadelphia is baseball central once again, and the $330 million star in right field is the primary reason. Harper stole the show on Sunday night, from his theatrical bow to the fans in the bleachers before the first pitch to his seventh-inning solo homer that prompted more "M-V-P" chants from his adoring public.
The Phillies won again, 5-1, completing a three-game, season-opening sweep of the Braves, the defending division champions. It marked the first time since 2011 that the Phillies opened a season with three wins in a row. That also happens to be the last year that they made the playoffs.
There's a long way to go, of course, before it will become reasonable to start thinking about October. April is only just beginning. And the Phillies still have enough questions, mostly related to their pitching, to keep the skeptics fully fueled.
But Harper has turned the baseball world's attention back to Philadelphia for the first time in a long time. And Harper Mania is only going to grow this week, as he makes his return to Washington on Tuesday night to face the Nationals.
Harper's home run against Braves reliever Shane Carle gave the Phillies a 4-1 lead. It also nearly touched off a brawl. Two pitches later, Carle hit Rhys Hoskins on the left shoulder and was ejected from the game. Harper was on the top step of the dugout, screaming at Carle in the latest display of emotion from the slugger.
It was an emotional weekend for Harper. He hit his first Phillies homer on Saturday night and gave a spirited curtain call in which he yelled, "Let's [bleeping] go!" He reached base four times Sunday night, drawing a walk in the first inning, lining a double off the base of the left-field wall in the third and walking again in the fifth before going deep.
The first Sunday Night Baseball game in Philadelphia since April 21, 2013, was a special enough occasion that the Phillies arranged their starting rotation to get Jake Arrieta on the mound. Arrieta had made two previous Sunday night starts, both with the Cubs, and threw a no-hitter in the first.
It was a struggle for Arrieta, who dealt with control problems for six innings. It wasn't until the final batter of the fourth inning that he threw more strikes than balls. He issued six walks, including the leadoff batter in the first and sixth innings.
But Arrieta still made it through six innings while giving up only one run. He threw 104 pitches, the fifth-highest total for any starting pitcher through their first start this season behind Max Scherzer (109), Trevor Bauer (108), Kenta Maeda (106) and Eduardo Rodriguez (105).
The Phillies tied the game at 1 on Andrew McCutchen's leadoff homer in the third inning. They added two runs in the fifth without getting a hit. Braves rookie Kyle Wright, making his first career major-league start, walked McCutchen and hit Jean Segura with a pitch. Lefty reliever Max Fried walked Harper and Hoskins, forcing in a run, before J.T. Realmuto lifted a sacrifice fly.
Harper did most of the rest, stealing the show once again.
