Buzz about Harper, Nationals getting louder by the game

Add Alex Rodriguez to the list.

“They’re very, very talented,” said the Yankees third baseman, once a 19-year-old prodigy himself. “There’s no hiding that.”

“I love everything [about Harper],” Rodriguez added, likening Harper’s aggressive base running to that of Larry Walker. “I’m a huge baseball fan above all, even being a baseball player. He’s the kind of guy I would pay my money to watch play. I’m sure well after I’m done I’ll be paying my money to watch him play and break all the records.”

To this point, Harper and his teammates have brushed off those compliments and that attention.

“We don’t pay attention,” third baseman Ryan Zimmerman said Wednesday. “We all know we have a long ways to go.”

They can take their next step this weekend, against the Yankees, in a park full of fans who came to see them, not their opponent.

“They’ve gotten a lot of national attention,” Rodriguez told reporters. “They’re a force to be reckoned with, and I think you’re going to have to worry about them — and not only this October, but many Octobers.”