{"id":254395,"date":"2026-07-29T06:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/254395\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T06:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:42:07","slug":"as-deadline-nears-bryce-harper-says-phillies-need-some-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/254395\/","title":{"rendered":"As deadline nears, Bryce Harper says Phillies ‘need some help’"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> dropping their fourth straight series since the All-Star break, Bryce Harper<\/a> was blunt when asked if the team needs reinforcements as the Monday trade deadline approaches.<\/p>\n

“I think we need some help,” Harper said Tuesday night after the Phillies lost 1-0<\/a> to the Marlins<\/a>, their eighth defeat in 11 games since the break. They have scored one run or fewer in six of those 11 games.<\/p>\n

Harper was responding to a question about whether this Philadelphia lineup could beat good pitching come October, like they saw Tuesday in Miami. Sandy Alcantara<\/a> pitched four-hit ball over seven sharp innings, striking out five and walking one. He didn’t give up a hit until Bryan De La Cruz<\/a> reached on an infield single with two outs in the fifth. It was his major league-leading 16th quality start.<\/p>\n

“I think we’ve proved pretty much all year we’ve done a pretty good job, but any time you can get some help in here and reinforcements, I think it helps,” Harper said.<\/p>\n

Asked if that help would be best coming in the form of an arm or a bat, Harper said, “I think both.”<\/p>\n

“I think obviously everybody knows what we need,” Harper continued. “I’ve said it over the last couple of days. We need both.”<\/p>\n

As for whether he’s confident that help is on the way, Harper said that’s a question for Dave Dombrowski, the team’s president of baseball operations.<\/p>\n

Harper recently told The Athletic that he brought his old outfield glove on the Phillies’ road trip, in the event the team were to trade for a first baseman. Harper, 33, has not played right field in a game since April 2022; a ligament injury to his right elbow saw him switch to designated hitter and later first base.<\/p>\n

At 57-51, Philadelphia is six games back of the first-place Atlanta Braves<\/a>in the National League East and has a tenuous hold on a wild-card spot.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Philadelphia Phillies dropping their fourth straight series since the All-Star break, Bryce Harper was blunt when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[108486,1421,54649,1423,139,69,71,70,1425],"class_list":["post-254395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-108486","tag-espn","tag-harper-bryce","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-phillies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}