Sending Bryce Harper to Triple-A is not an option for the Washington Nationals according to manager Matt Williams.
“Bryce Harper’s one of the guys on our team. He’s a very important part of our team. Just like everybody else is. Do we understand each other? It’s not fair to the kid, it’s not fair to the other guys in that clubhouse, to even think about sending Bryce Harper to the minor leagues, or to cause a stir. It’s unacceptable. It won’t happen.” said Williams to reporters on Wednesday via Nats Insider.
Though 52 games this season the 21-year-old Harper is hitting just .249/.333/.359 with three home runs and 14 RBI.
Asked if sending Harper to Syracuse for a week or so was a bad idea the manager was less committal.
“I don’t know,” Williams replied. “I don’t think it’s stupid. Generally, if you have young players, that’s what you do. But this guy is a special young player. We all know that. It’s different. I think he works hard every day. He’s the first one in the ballpark, generally, to get his day going. He’s grinding. We’re doing everything we can to get a good feel going in there and help him with his confidence and all that. It’s not easy, by any stretch. But I don’t know if it’s a good idea at this point to do that, because it’s completely different pitching. We all know the big difference between Triple-A pitching and big-league pitching. It’s probably more of an option to have him feel good here, get it back. We’ve seen him, certainly, good and hitting well. For me, it’s not necessarily that he can’t hit, of course. It is that he’s in some kind of a slump. What we have to do is try to work our way through it and get him out of it as quickly as possible. He grinds every day, you guys. He’s doing everything we can to get out of it, and so are we.”
Harper’s play has taken a drastic downturn since his stint on the disabled list last June.
