Li’l Papi? Bryce Harper’s fast playoff start for Phillies recalls David ‘Big Papi’ Ortiz and the 2004 Red Sox.

SAN DIEGO — John Middleton paid Bryce Harper $330 million in 2019 to get his World Series trophy back.

Harper’s doing all he can. So far, he’s been Philly’s Big Papi.

L’il Papi, if you will.

Through eight postseason games, Harper leads all playoff participants with a 1.390 OPS, four home runs, and four doubles. His seven RBIs tie him with the Astros’ Yordan Alvarez, and his .419 batting average is best among players with more than seven at-bats; he has 31.

Harper is producing the kind of postseason that David Ortiz had in 2004, when he carried the Red Sox to their first World Series title in 86 years, broke the Curse of Babe Ruth, and introduced himself to the world as Big Papi. Ortiz hit .500 with three homers, 13 RBIs, and a 1.478 OPS through eight playoff games.

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Harper has reached base at least once in all eight playoff games, just like Papi. He’s scored eight runs; Papi scored nine. He’s scored at least once in seven of the eight games, just like Ortiz did. Both served as their team’s left-handed designated hitter, and both batted cleanup, though Harper has done it without a superstar like Manny Ramirez tenderizing pitchers in the No. 3 spot.

Both also relish/relished the spotlight.

“I live for this moment,” Harper said Tuesday after the Phillies won Game 1 of the NLCS in San Diego.

Harper’s Phillies, the No. 6 seed in baseball’s expanded playoff format, had just won again. He’d hit the game-winning home run. His numbers were sick.

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“We get to see this a lot; he goes on stretches where it’s like he decides he’s not going to make an out,” said first baseman Rhys Hoskins. “Now, the national baseball stage is getting to see it, too.”

Seeing it and appreciating it are two different things. Harper has been the best player in baseball since the playoffs began, but he’s been overshadowed.

How has this happened?

Here’s how. Whenever Harper does something remarkable, his teammates have done something more remarkable. Take Tuesday, for example. Phillies ace Zack Wheeler and the bullpen shut down the Padres in their stadium. Kyle Schwarber deposited a ball 488 feet into the second deck of the right-field stands at Petco Park.

But Harper had already given Wheeler & Co. a lead. The Schwar-bomb came in the sixth; it was just the cherry on top.

We’ve been taking Harper for granted.

Part of the reason Big Papi became a darling was his back story. He was released by the Twins after the 2002 season to avoid an arbitration raise, and he landed with the Red Sox thanks to campaigning by Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez, a Dominican countryman.

Of course, pushing the Red Sox to three World Series titles with epic postseasons, beginning in 2004, amplified Ortiz’s career all the way to the Hall of Fame this summer. He went from nobody to icon.

Harper has had the highest of profiles from the beginning. This is what’s been expected of him for more than a decade.

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When the Nationals drafted him No. 1 overall in 2010, Harper was the most-hyped hitting prospect since the Seattle Mariners took Alex Rodriguez first overall in 1993.

He’s the reigning MVP, an award he’s won twice, each time in a big East Coast city. He isn’t shy like Mike Trout: Harper has an entire wardrobe done in a Phillie Phanatic theme. He is relentlessly available, consistently accommodating, a tireless face of his franchise.

When he signed as a free agent with the Phillies, it not only was the richest deal in the history baseball, it was the biggest in the history of North American sports.

He’s been a bargain, and that doesn’t include the intangibles. He’s helped create a clubhouse atmosphere that has the kind of characters and charisma that those “Cowboy Up!” Red Sox teams had.

One thing those Red Sox teams never had: A two-time MVP.

Neither Harper nor Ortiz made much noise in postseason before their breakout years. Papi hit .221 with two homers and a .649 OPS in 21 playoff games with the Twins and Red Sox before 2004. Harper hit .211 with five homers and an .801 OPS, all with the Nationals.

They didn’t kill their clubs, exactly, but they didn’t carry their teams, either.

Harper is carrying the Phillies now, but in an oddly quiet way.

Ortiz’s hits were louder; Big Papi hit a walk-off homer to win the ALDS; had walk-off hits to win Games 4 and 5 of the ALCS in the Red Sox’s unprecedented, 0-3 comeback against the New York Yankees in the ALCS; and fueled a sweep of the Cardinals in the World Series with a three-run shot in Game 1.

Harper’s contributions have been subtler.

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Schwarber would have scored from third and the Phillies would have taken a lead in the first inning. It speaks to Harper’s maturity that he didn’t press as the game progressed.

For the moment, L’il Papi is in a postseason zone few players have ever experienced.

“I live for these opportunities to be here,” Harper said.

Just like Big Papi.

Recognize.