Bryce Harper hit his first home-run of the season for the Syracuse Chiefs on Sunday.
The 19-year-old prospect from Las Vegas drilled a 3-1 fastball from Buffalo Bisons hurler Jeurys Familia over the 350-foot sign in right-field in the fourth inning of the first game of an April 22 doubleheader at Alliance Bank Stadium. It was his first round-tripper at the Triple-A level.
Harper followed the home run with a single to raise his season batting average to .242, but the Chiefs lost the game 6-1.
The left-handed hitting outfielder has had slow starts at each professional level. Last year – his first in professional baseball – the top overall pick in the 2010 Major League Baseball Draft recorded a combined .297 average with 24 doubles, two triples and 17 home runs in 109 games and 452 plate appearances between Class-A Hagerstown and Double-A Harrisburg.
Harper started the 2012 season on April 5 with the Syracuse’s International League ballclub. He hit his long-awaited first homer during his 61st at-bat for the Chiefs.
Familia, the 22-year-old Dominican pitcher who served up Harper’s long ball, is considered one of the Mets’ top pitching prospects. Familia struck out eight Chiefs in five innings Sunday.
With Syracuse trailing 3-0 in the bottom of the fourth, Harper stepped up to bat against Familia with two outs and no one on. The hitter worked the count to 3-1 before crushing a knee-high heater over the family picnic area beyond the right-field wall.
WSKO-AM play-by-play announcer Kevin Brown called it “a moonshot.”
Patrick Weddington, a writer for federalbaseball.com, described it as “a screaming liner.”
The nightcap belonged to Chiefs right-handed starter Tanner Roark, who recorded his first-ever Triple-A win after limiting Buffalo to just two hits over six shutout innings. Chiefs outfielder Corey Brown produced all the offense Roark would need, a solo home run to right in the bottom of the fourth against Bisons pitcher Chris Schwinden. Chiefs reliever Ryan Perry shut down the Bisons in the final inning for the save.
The win snapped a six-game losing streak for Syracuse, which now stands at 4 wins and 13 losses.
