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Washington Nationals' GM Mike Rizzo And Legendary Dodgers Announcer Vin Scully On Bryce Harper

Washington Nationals' GM Mike Rizzo updated everyone on Bryce Harper's health this morning on 106.7 the FAN In D.C.'s The Mike Rizzo Show. Last night, before the Nats second game off three with the Dodgers in Los Angeles, legendary broadcaster Vin Scully spoke to Charlie Slowes about Harper, the movie "42" and more...

By Patrick Reddington
USA TODAY Sports

Bryce Harper sat out of last night's game in Los Angeles and he's listed as day-to-day, but as Washington Nationals' GM Mike Rizzo explained to 106.7 the FAN in D.C.'s Holden Kusher and Danny Rouhier on "The Mike Rizzo Show" this morning, in spite of what some have said and as the Washington Post's Adam Kilgore originally reported on Tuesday afternoon, the 20-year-old outfielder did not suffer a concussion when he ran into Dodger Stadium's right field wall in the first game of the current series in LA. "There's no concussion," Rizzo reiterated, "and he's feeling better. He felt better yesterday. He felt better towards the end of the day yesterday than when he arrived at the park, so we feel that he'll be ready to go in the next day or so." Asked if Harper needed any more testing before he could return, Rizzo once again said, "No."

"There's no concussion," Mike Rizzo said, "and he's feeling better. He felt better yesterday." - Nats' GM Mike Rizzo on Bryce Harper's health

"The testing was conducted the night that he had the incident and he passed the test," the Nationals' GM explained, "I was right there watching him."

The Nats' outfielder will return, Rizzo said, when he feels better than he does now. "He's sore like any kind of accident you get into. It's kind of a little bit like if you get into a car crash or something, get into a fender bender where you just get jostled or an airbag hits you or something like that, you're just sore and that's where he's at right now."

"He told me at the end of the game that he was available if we needed him to pinch hit yesterday and he's going to be day-to-day." - Mike Rizzo on Bryce Harper

The Nats' General Manager did go on to say at another point in the show that in spite of Harper saying he felt nauseous early in the day on Tuesday, "He told me at the end of the game that he was available if we needed him to pinch hit yesterday and he's going to be day-to-day. We'll see how he feels. He's sore on the left side of his body, which is the side that took the brunt of the collision, but other than that, once the soreness is gone he'll be able to perform for us."

• While we're on the subject of Bryce Harper... Legendary Dodgers' announcer Vin Scully took a few minutes to talk to Charlie Slowes before last night's game and after Harper's big collision with the wall on Monday night in Dodger Stadium and, you know, the start of the Nats' 2010 no.1 overall pick's career, he was, of course one of the topics of discussion. Scully said that the one good thing to result from Harper running into the right field wall while chasing a fly ball was that he had to shave his beard off in order for his chin to get stitched:

"The only good thing about it is it knocked his beard off. And I was delighted to see … I went down to the clubhouse because I admire his play, and there he was clean shaven, stitches under the chin."

"He’s such a fine young man and an outstanding player. And it’s none of my business, but I hope he plays clean-shaven." - Vin Scully on Bryce Harper to Charlie Slowes

Just to be clear that he was joking about the Nationals' young star, Scully added, "He’s such a fine young man and an outstanding player. And it’s none of my business, but I hope he plays clean-shaven."

Charlie Slowes (@CharlieSlowes) tweeted out the link to his interview with Mr. Scully which he said on Twitter, "was clearly the best 10 1/2 minutes of my day yesterday.":

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