Bryce Harper expects trade-deadline help. It’s up to his Phillies teammates to make it happen.

Over the last 3½ years, we’ve learned everything we need to know about Bryce Harper. Over the next 3½ weeks, we’ll learn everything we need to know about the rest of the Phillies clubhouse.

“It should be a good deadline,” Harper said on Tuesday afternoon, “if we do our job in here and get to where we need to be.”

That’s really all there is to it. If they want the trade deadline to mean something, they need to make it matter. They need to give their front office a reason to be more aggressive than it was last season. They need to give their ownership a reason to push his president and general manager in that direction. John Middleton did not become the managing partner of the Phillies because he prefers sitting on his hands. All his ball club needs to do is give him a reason.

Harper says he is going to play again this season. He won’t say when, but it will be at least another month. The only question is whether he is going to get to play for something.

The situation isn’t all that different from what it would have been had Harper been in uniform preparing for a game against the Nationals instead standing and stewing in street clothes with three pins in his thumb. It was always going to be about everybody else, just like it always has been.

Since the start of the 2019 season, nobody has done more to put the Phillies in a position of second-half relevance. Since signing that gargantuan 13-year, $330 million contract three-plus years ago, Harper ranks eighth in the majors in home runs (98), third in on base percentage (.400), fifth in slugging (.563), fifth in OPS (.962), and fifth in OPS+ (155). He won last year’s NL MVP award, and would have been a leading contender for this year’s had a wild pitch not fractured his thumb a week-and-a-half ago.

There aren’t a lot of sports in which an individual player can be as singularly dominant as Harper and play for a team as singularly mediocre as the Phillies. Harper’s curse is that he happens to play one such sport. The other eight-ninths of the plate appearances will always have more of an impact on the outcome than his sliver. The innings will always be pitched by somebody else.

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Heading into Tuesday night’s series opener against the Nationals at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies were in as good of a position as they had been through 80 games since Harper’s arrival. At 42-38, they were one game out of a playoff berth in a wild-card hunt that had seen them gain a remarkable amount of ground in a little more than a month. Going by wins and losses, the Phillies weren’t in a wildly different position than they had been before. In 2019, Harper’s first with the club, they were 42-38 through 80 games. Last year, they were 39-41, eventually peaking at 59-53 with a two-game division lead.

Yet if we measure by justifiable hope, 2022 trumps them all. In 2019, they had a run differential of just plus-1 through 80 games. Last year, they were minus-21. This year, they’ve outscored opponents by 45 runs, the sixth-best mark in the NL and one that predates their 20-9 run under interim manager Rob Thomson. The expected won-loss record for a team with a plus-45 run differential is 10 games over .500.

Still, the roster is riddled with enough holes to make 42-38 feel right. They have a couple of aces, but also three No. 5s, two of whom are currently injured. They have the makings of a top-shelf closer, and maybe even an eighth-inning guy, but the rest of the bullpen should come with a trigger warning.

Dave Dombrowski has patched up his pitching before. In July 2011, he acquired 27-year-old starter Doug Fister and reliever David Pauley from the Mariners without sacrificing a top prospect. Fister went on to start 68 games with a 3.29 ERA in 2½ seasons with the Tigers and started Game 3 of the ALCS in 2011. The following season, Dombrowski acquired starter Anibal Sanchez from the Marlins and watched him post a 1.77 ERA in three postseason starts to help the Tigers reach the World Series.

“I never doubt Dombrowski,” Harper said on Tuesday. “He’s always going out there and doing what he needs to do to help this team get to where we need to be. … I would think if we’re in that third spot in the wild card especially after this trip, I don’t see why not we wouldn’t go and do it. Like I said, I don’t ever doubt Dombrowski to go and do what he needs to do. Same thing with Middleton. They do such a great job for us. They want to win more than anybody, just like everybody in this clubhouse.”

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They need to show it. J.T. Realmuto needs to be the guy who had hit three home runs with an .851 OPS in his last eight games entering Tuesday instead of the one who hit three home runs with a .660 OPS in his first 62. Same goes for Alec Bohm, who entered Tuesday with four extra-base hits in 45 at-bats since seeing his season OPS bottom out at .632. Bryson Stott had reached base in 13 of his last 25 plate appearances. Nick Castellanos needs to follow suit.

The pitching is what it is. This team is built to win with its bats. All it will take is the players mentioned above to be 25% better than what they’ve been. Given what they’ve been, that’s not asking a lot. Besides, look at the guy who’s doing the asking. It’s time for the Phillies to pay Harper back.