PHOENIX — Bryce Harper had extended his on-base streak to 34 games with a perfect bunt, and he was excited. The whole Philadelphia Phillies dugout was excited. Harper sprinted down the line, clapped his hands and yelled at his teammates.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Harper said after a convincing 7-1 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks, “for a couple of days.”

This is the promise of Harper, now 33 years old and authoring another tremendous season. When he is focused — truly focused — there is almost nothing Harper cannot will himself to do on a baseball field.

He wants to play all 162 games and, so far, he has not missed a single one. He set a goal in spring training to walk 140 or 150 times this season. He’s at 98 walks, the most in the majors, and he’s going to finish with one of the higher totals in his career. He wanted to prove he was still among the best players in this sport, and one day into September, he ranks sixth in MLB with a .901 OPS. He is fourth in on-base percentage. He is ninth in wRC+. He changed positions in August to accommodate the club’s addition of Luis Arraez, who has hit behind him in the lineup.

All Harper has done in 119 plate appearances since Arraez arrived Aug. 4 is reach base at a .521 clip. That is staggering. It is the best in the majors during that span … by a mere 58 points.

“He looks locked in,” Kyle Schwarber said.

“He’s always been incredible, and I think people lose sight of how good he really is,” Jesús Luzardo said of Bryce Harper, who went 4-for-4 on Tuesday. (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)

There is something different about this, though, because it’s not as if Harper has put the Phillies on his back. He is not the star of every game, or even most games during this absurd time of winning. The Phillies (79-60) have won 15 of their last 17. They have again clawed to three games back of the Atlanta Braves, with a four-game showdown looming this weekend at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies have done it with better defense, steady pitching and a lineup that refuses to strike out.

But it is Harper — not Arraez, or Schwarber, or anyone else — who has set the tone.

“It’s a different animal,” Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said. “Harp’s been day in, day out. Watching him all year long, he just does not give away at-bats. It’s rare that he gives an at-bat away.”

“He’s always been incredible, and I think people lose sight of how good he really is,” Phillies starter Jesús Luzardo said. “I think he gets held to an extremely high standard, which he also holds himself to. So I think it’s tough. But the guy, I mean, he just hits.”

“It’s not like just saying like it’s all on him, right?” Schwarber said. “When he’s at his best, it’s like, there’s obviously going to be so many good things that are going to be coming for the guys behind him.”

Harper went 4-for-4 with a walk, a run scored and an RBI in Tuesday’s victory. Three pitches explained so much. In the first inning, after guessing that All-Star lefty Eduardo Rodríguez would throw him a first-pitch fastball only to see a cutter he ripped 343 feet foul, he dragged a bunt.

The Phillies had a scouting report that Rodríguez does not move well off the mound, and they were willing to test it. “Nobody really sees that coming,” Schwarber said. Harper’s teammates included.

“Just glad I got a hit off a lefty,” Harper said.

It moved Trea Turner, who had doubled home Schwarber, to third base. He scored when Arraez hit into a double play. The Phillies had two first-inning runs, enough of a margin to win this game.

And they kept adding. In the fifth, with one out, Harper took a first-pitch sinker from Rodríguez down and in for ball one. Last season, Harper swung 54 percent of the time at 0-0 pitches. It was the highest rate of his career. Only Nick Castellanos took more first-pitch swings last season among qualified MLB hitters than Harper did.

He’s lowered the first-pitch swings to 47 percent in 2026, more in line with his career norms. His walk rate is his highest since 2021, his National League MVP season. He sees fewer pitches in the strike zone than most hitters, a fact Harper had memorized during spring training.

This first-pitch take started a seven-pitch walk. Harper later scored an important insurance run on an Alec Bohm single.

“The fact that he’s walking is just huge for him,” Mattingly said of Harper. “Because we talked about it in spring training. You know, he talked a lot about the guy behind him, but I always feel like that guy has to protect himself by swinging at strikes. And then forcing the line to keep moving.”

Harper swears it’s not a conscious effort to walk.

“I have no idea,” he said. “I don’t have an answer. I’m just trying to have good at-bats. I know it’s in there. I know I can do it. But I wish I had a better answer. You know, I’m not really thinking about it. Just trying to have good at-bats, hit stuff hard over the plate when I need to, and take my walks when I can.”

So it was the last at-bat Harper took Tuesday night that stuck with Schwarber. Harper worked a 2-2 count against veteran righty Derek Law, who countered with a slider well below the strike zone.

Harper flipped it into right field for a run-scoring single.

“He stays behind it, stays through it, gets a hit into right-center field,” Schwarber said. “RBI, right? It’s a tough pitch. So those tell you different things. This guy is obviously, one, seeing it great. But also, he’s just being able to stay with himself, and he’s taking what the game gives him. And, when people do that, it gets dangerous.”

This is the list of Phillies hitters age 33 or older with a .900 OPS and enough at-bats to qualify since 1930:

• Jim Thome (2004)
• Mike Schmidt (1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987)

That’s it.

Harper has 23 more games to ride the wave into the postseason, where he still has the biggest goal to accomplish. There is no reason to even use the word that was always going to define his season because the numbers tell enough.

“He’s obviously a massive piece of what we do,” Schwarber said. “When you’re getting a really good version of him — which, sure, we all know the extra-base hits, the damage — it’s all going to be there. But then you get the extra piece of the walk, working the pitcher, grinding. It adds just a whole other element, right?”

Everyone can feel it when Harper enters the room. That’s just how it is. He’s Bryce Harper. And, when he’s locked in like this, there’s an energy that everyone who shares a dugout with Harper can channel. They can feel it.

“I just have to keep going,” Harper said.