Harrison Bader continues strong impression on Phillies, including Brandon Marsh

MILWAUKEE — Harrison Bader plays with his very long hair on fire, and the Phillies are noticing it. “Energy” and “excitement” are some of the words you’ll hear tossed around from players and coaches asked what Bader has brought to the clubhouse since the trade deadline. 

It’s why the word Bader used after Monday’s thrilling win in Milwaukee, when asked what’s helped him hit the ground running with his new team, felt almost paradoxical.

“Just relaxing,” Bader said, “and just letting your game speak for itself to try to help the team win.” 

His game is talking loudly. Bader went 3-for-5 in the Phillies’ latest win. He’s hitting .313 with a .488 slugging percentage as a Phillie.

In his last 12 games, that’s .462 with a .718 slug.

“I love him,” manager Rob Thomson said after Philadelphia’s 10-8 win over the Brewers at American Family Field. “He’s performing. He’s a very confident person, but he’s a good person. It’s not phony or fake or anything like that.”

“Energy, a heck of an at-bat every single time, Gold Glove defense, good teammate on and off the field,” Brandon Marsh said of what Bader’s provided since he arrived. “He’s been huge for this club and he’s going to continue to be big for us.”

Adjusting to a new major-league clubhouse is nothing new for the Phillies’ newest outfielder. The Phillies are his sixth team overall, his sixth since the start of 2022 and his third since the start of 2024. 

He said it’s easy to get caught up in everything that goes along with joining a new club — trying to fit into the clubhouse, living up to expectations external and internal. 

For Bader, simplifying things takes care of all of that. 

“There’s a lot of variables involved in getting traded,” Bader said. “So I think just thinking about what you have to do every day to help that team win, it eliminates all the things that might be distracting. Just go out there, and good things happen when you’re focused on a plan.”

It can be easy to ascribe those above characteristics — energy, enthusiasm, intensity — onto a player who’s simply playing well. But Bader said he tries to keep it a consistent in the day-to-day because the results aren’t always going to follow. 

It’s not phony or fake, like Thomson said. It is, though, intentional. 

“I think [the energy] is an everyday thing. Well, I certainly like to think so. I’m human. But definitely try to wake up every day regardless of whatever happened the day before and understand that the game will have whatever it might have in store for me,” Bader said. “Stuff’s gonna get hairy down the line. So just being really good at training yourself to be high energy and high support for your teammates every single day, I think, is a good practice.”

He was not the only star of Monday’s win over the Brewers, because another high-octane, long-haired outfielder shared in that role. Marsh went 4-for-5, including a go-ahead RBI single in the ninth that preceded an insurance knock from Bader. 

“Couple of bad swings that turned out good,” Marsh said after the game. “I’m very thankful for that. It’s a hard game. You take as many as you can.”

Bad swings or not, Marsh is 11-for-23 in his last seven games. As the Phillies continue their outfield rotation of sorts, there’s a case to be made that, along with Bader, he’s carved out something much closer to an everyday role for himself. 

Are they feeding off of each other?

“I just think it’s awesome to watch in front of me,” Bader said of Marsh. “I just try to pass the baton the best I can.”

He did that pretty well on Monday. Both of them did. Really, it was more of the same.