The Phillies know how to throw one heck of a birthday bash.
Bryce Harper is starting off his 31st trip around the sun on a high note, belting a home run as part of an offensive bombardment by the Phillies in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series.
Harper hit one of the Phillies’ three home runs in the first two innings against the Diamondbacks to open up a 3-0 lead.
The birthday boy sent the game’s fifth pitch deep into the right-field stands to send Citizens Bank Park into a frenzy and put Philadelphia ahead by two runs.
To commemorate the occasion, on his jaunt to home plate, Harper put up three fingers on one hand and one on the other and pretended to blow out birthday candles.
The Phillies superstar became just the fourth player in MLB postseason history to hit a home run on his birthday.
He joined the likes of Willie Aikens, Kolten Wong, and Evan Longoria, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
The party had already gotten started just moments before Harper stepped to the plate when Kyle Schwarber hit a solo blast on the first pitch to the Phillies.
The energy went up another notch when Nick Castellanos continued his monster postseason with the third homer of the game and his fifth of the playoffs, with all of them coming in the Phillies’ last three games.
Castellanos’ homer tied Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer David Ortiz’s career high for playoff home runs in a single postseason, according to Gabrielle Starr of the Boston Herald.Â
Ortiz slugged five homers on the way to helping Boston snap the Curse of the Bambino in 2004, including a pair of walk-off blasts.
Castellanos became the seventh Phillies player in franchise history to hit five postseason home runs and the 60th across all of Major League Baseball.
The most home runs ever hit in a single postseason was 10 in 2020 by Randy Arozarena of the Tampa Bay Rays.
Harper later drove in a fourth run for Philadelphia – this time hitting a single in the bottom of the third to drive in shortstop Trea Turner.
