Phillies offense come back from the brink…

Not in anger, not in elation.

So often, all around him, bedlam reigns. Yet the Phillies’ leading man strikes a mellow figure, providing a steady rhythm within the cacophony. Harper’s strategy for conquering the madness of his life and his job is to maintain calm. And so, his voice has grown quieter over the years. A product, perhaps, of knowing that his words have come to carry great weight.

Back in October 2022, when Harper delivered the swing of his life — the blast in NLCS Game 5 that punched a ticket to the World Series — he hardly reacted. As teammates poured over the dugout railing like a horde of excited children, their faces volcanoes of glee, the game’s greatest showman remained strikingly nonchalant, utterly expressionless. There was no need for words that day; actions spoke louder.

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

Harper delivered the galvanizing moment of his team’s 7-6 victory in NLDS Game 2 on Sunday — a two-run blast off the batter’s eye in dead-center field. Upon crossing home plate, the typically stoic Harper erupted, punching his right arm into the air. He then threw both hands toward the sky, as if telling the 45,679 fans at Citizens Bank Park to get back into the game. His ear-splitting “LET’S GO!” echoed across the upper reaches of the sold-out ballyard.

When a quiet voice bellows, it can move mountains.

For an hour and 58 minutes on Sunday, Harper’s club was mired in a sludge of offensive ineptitude. One day after getting embarrassed at home by the Mets in NLDS Game 1, the Phillies couldn’t manage a run through five innings in Game 2. Each scoreless bottom of the frame only made the home crowd more frustrated, more restless.

By the fourth, they were booing cleanup hitter Nick Castellanos for swinging at pitches beyond the strike zone. The walls were closing in; the air was leaking from the balloon. By the time Harper strolled to the plate in the sixth with a runner on first, doubt had consumed most of Citizens Bank Park. Understandably so.

The Phillies’ worst-case scenario was rattling around in the minds of every soul sardined into this theater of October baseball. The club’s most recent postseason showing warranted as much. A year ago, the Phillies returned home for Game 6 of the NLCS needing a single win against the overmatched Arizona Diamondbacks to secure a trip to the World Series.

Then the Phillies crumbled under the weight of expectation. On back-to-back nights, sold-out crowds watched in horror as the club’s star-studded, high-powered offense flailed at breaking ball after breaking ball. The result was a shocking playoff exit, one that left a dark cloud over this most recent Phillies season, 95 wins and an NL East title aside.

On Sunday, each trudge back to the dugout against a locked-in starting pitcher only reignited all those bad memories. The crowd felt that dismal energy and amplified it. Everyone needed a jolt to erase the doubt.

But, you see, Bryce Harper doesn’t do doubt. He never has. Philly’s force of nature is a man driven by an engine of unwavering self-belief. It’s why he can do what he does.