Harper, Homers, Eflin: 7 Top Highlights From Phillies Hot Start

After eight years of missing the playoffs and fading from the game's elite, the Phillies have become one of the sport's hottest teams. While the conversations leading up to the season focused on the Phillies as a playoff contender, the first week of the season has them as a good a bet as any to compete for a World Series championship.

The Phils kicked off the season with a 4-1 record, sweeping the Braves in style at home and coming just a error away from sweeping a two-game set with the Nationals down in D.C.

Things resume Friday night in south Philadelphia as the Phillies host the Minnesota Twins, who also started 4-1, for a three game set.

Here's a few of the top moments, events, and stats from the season's opening week:

7. Kingery's acrobatic slide

Kingery was on first when Andrew McCutchen smacked a bases-loaded double, easily scoring the runners on second and third. The throw into Nationals catcher Yan Gomes easily beat "Scotty Jetpax" but the speedy and nimble superutility man executed a part slide, part dive, part pirouette to avoid the tag.

6. Maikel Franco as compared to Manny Machado, after week 1

Franco: .400 batting average/.591 on base percentage/1.000 slugging percentage/1.591 OPS, three home runs, eight RBIs, seven walks

Machado: .240/.321/.360/.681, one home run, three RBIs, three walks

The season is still at its dawn, but fans have to be happy so far with the decision to get Harper over Machado, and keep Franco.

5. Roaring back from a rare Nola off day

For two years now, Cy Young contender and team ace Aaron Nola has undoubtedly been the Phillies MVP. On Wednesday afternoon he had a rare off day against the Nationals, allowing six runs in three innings, putting them down 6-2. With any Phillies offense since perhaps the primes of Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and Jimmy Rollins, it would have felt like an insurmountable lead. It wasn't.

4. Eflin outduels Scherzer

When the Phillies went down to D.C. to battle the Nationals on Tuesday night, they could've thrown Nola, who had not thrown for five days, allowing for a matchup of the second and third place finishers in the 2018 National League Cy Young race.

But it's early in the season, and the Phillies are bullish on youngster Zach Eflin, who had something of a breakout season last year that was hampered in the second half by bad luck and bad defense.

Eflin did not shy away from the big stage. Featuring a improved fastball, cutter, and his typically devastating sinker, Eflin struck out nine Nationals over five innings, letting up no runs, en route to an 8-2 drubbing.

3. McCutchen's home run to lead off the season

It happened on the second pitch a Phillies hitter saw in 2019, and in the former MVP's first at-bat as a Phillie. Things can't start on a much more optimistic note than this:

2. Hoskins' opening day grand slam

The Braves were crawling back into the picture on Opening Day when they decided to walk Bryce Harper and load the bases, choosing to pitch to Hoskins instead.

The result was instructive of just what this Phillies lineup can do:

1. Bryce flips the script in D.C.

Harper got on base in eight of his ten plate appearances in his return to his former home in D.C. After being booed by what appeared to be an angry Nationals crowd, and striking out in his first two at-bats, he proceeded to follow that up with a double, a home run, three singles, and three walks. While the entire performance is highlight reel worthy, it's hard to top the home run and ensuing bat flip, which put an exclamation mark on a new era of rivalry between the Philadelphia and Washington.

Five games into the season, Harper leads baseball in nearly every major batting category, including batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS.