Bryce Harper’s T-Mobile commercial is strange

Bryce Harper has a new-ish T-Mobile commercial and it is strange. Not smacking-a-homer-in-a-liquid-world-and-morphing-into-a-terrifying-faceball strange, but still, strange.

Ryan Fagan of Sporting News.com suggests that the commercial, with its talk of arbitrary limits, might evoke bad memories of the Strasburg Shutdown, which I didn’t even consider the first time I saw it. There are too many oddities in the commercial to think about that.

Orioles announcers Gary Thorne and Mike Bordick are the broadcasters.

For a game between the Braves and the Nationals. I guess Carp and F.P. weren’t available.

“You know I don’t believe it, but he signed that two-year contract that puts him on a limited hit plan,” Thorne says.

“Absolutely terrible,” Bordick agrees. “He gets fined for getting too many hits.”

“And he’s already over his monthly hit limit,” Thorne says, as Harper singles up the middle.

“Here come the overages,” Bordick says.

Braves reliever Luis Avilan is pitching in the fourth inning of a 0-0 game.

As Fagan notes: “In his 91 appearances over the past two years, Avilan has entered a game before the seventh inning just four times (three times in the sixth, once in the fifth).”

If you’re curious, the video of the hit used in the commercial was actually from the seventh inning of the Nationals’s 2-1 loss to the Braves on August 6, 2013.

Whatever. This is a commercial, you say, and I should stop nit-picking. Fine then. How do you explain this…

Bryce Harper grows a beard and shaves his mustache while running to first base.

The strangest goof of them all — the ol’ 90-foot shadow. Talk about a lack of hustle.

In related non-news, a reader pointed out that there’s a silly continuity error in the Alfred Morris cover vote campaign video I wrote about yesterday. The clock that Morris sets back to 7:30 to cleverly avoid being late reads 7:50 only second later. Nothing major, but still.

(Thanks, @GarrettS703)