“I’m just trying to bail out of it as best I can,” Harper said later Wednesday of his dry late July. “I thought my bats were better today, I saw a lot of pitches, so that’s good.”

His outlook is admirable, though his at bats … not that much.

Against two of the premier teams in the American League, the Central Division-leading Guardians and East co-leaders Yankees, both with 65 wins, Harper had one hit (a home run) in 25 ABs.

That stretch will not stay with him. He’s been too good for too long. He knows better.

“I’ve played a lot of baseball in my career,” he said. “(Hit) 1,600 games the other day, so that’s pretty cool, being able to do that here in Philadelphia. Going through stretches like this, it’s part of the game, part of growing as a player. You just have to keep going.

“Keep on keeping on.”

“It’s certainly frustrating for him, because he does want to perform and help the team win, because that’s what he’s all about,” Thomson said of Harper. “He just has to keep battling through it. You know he’s going to come out of it at some point. He’s such a great hitter. He’s going to start hitting home runs again and he’s going to start feeling good about himself again.”

Then, noting Thursday is an off day, which will see the Phillies flying some 2,800-plus miles to Seattle — some off day — Thomson added of Harper, “Maybe he needs a day off and clear his head a little bit.”

Nothing like a six-hour flight to do that.

“Obviously we don’t want to play the game that way,” Harper said. “We’re a really good team. We want to win every series and every game that we play, and it’s not going to cut it if we do play that way. So I’m excited to turn the page to August and probably a couple of other guys are as well.”

One of them would be Trea Turner, who also didn’t get a break over the All-Star break, but didn’t get to play in this Yankees encore in South Philly.

Thomson said he was offering consideration to a guy still working his way back from a long absence due to a hamstring injury. But while Harper has been struggling mightily, his old friend and two-team teammate Turner has joined right in, going 8 for 48 (.167) post All-Star break.

“I think when we got back from the break I didn’t really get a lot to hit for the most part,” Turner said Tuesday, after another long and hard loss to New York, 7-6 in 12 innings. “I feel like I got pitched really well in Pittsburgh and Minnesota. Cleveland pitched me well, too. … I’m just out of whack; missing pitches.

“It’s bad timing because kind of everyone is struggling a little bit. It’s a hard game. It’s baseball. But we’ll get out of it. A lot of games left.”

But with their star-studded swoon over the past two or three weeks, the immediate future of the National League East seems a lot less certain.