Rookie Bryce Harper has had one of the most impressive seasons by a rookie in recent memory.

The 19-year-old was called up near the beginning of the season and put up come historic statistics for a teenager, hitting 22 home runs with 26 doubles and 59 RBIs. Harper amassed 254 total bases and 57 extra base hits, the most for any player under 20 in MLB history.

Harper has plenty of years ahead of him, but right now he has struggled throughout the playoffs as the Nationals prepare for a decisive Game 5 against the St. Louis Cardinals. He has one hit in 18 at-bats and has struck out six times.

"Not really frustrated about it really," Harper said to the Washington Post. "I'm just missing pitches. Popping them up. Just missing. Nothing I can do. Hopefully tomorrow I can come out here and get a few knocks and help our team win."

Due to the struggles, Harper has turned towards some interesting remedies to help him hit, including trying out some new special eye contacts. For Game 3 Harper wore red contacts, making his eyes look as if they were deep red and kind of creepy.

The contacts didn't help Harper in Game 3 very much, as he went 0-for-5, flying out in his first three at-bats.

Prior to Game 3 Harper tested out the contacts during batting practice according to Washington Times reporter Amanda Comak.

"Harper wasn't sure if he'd use them during the game - when he came out to test them there were clouds in front of the sun so he couldn't get the best read," she wrote. "But it was interesting to see at least one player doing something somewhat out of the ordinary just in case the sun is bad at Nationals Park."

"That's the hardest thing," he said. "Coming out there and everybody is swinging it and I'm not. So it's kind of hard."

The red contacts are not a new phenomenon in baseball, in fact Sports illustrated published a piece nearly 10 years ago about using contacts to improve eyesight and hitting.

"You're able to focus and see the spin and rotation of the ball better," Brian Roberts told SI. "But it freaks people out. You kind of look like Satan."

Slate Magazine got in on the action as well, asking "Will red contacts help the Washington Nationals' Bryce Harper see the ball?"

Funny enough, their answer was no.

According to the article, after asking the main question of it would help:

"Probably not much. So-called performance-tinted contacts make two separate claims. The first is that they reduce glare, just like eye black or ordinary sunglasses. In this regard, it's pretty clear the contacts deliver. The second claim, that they make target objects like baseballs visually "pop" by filtering out certain wavelengths of light, is more controversial. In a 2007 experiment, college and professional football players were fitted with both clear and tinted lenses, and then asked to pick out a series of curved lines that blended with increasing subtlety into a blurred, visually-noisy background. The players wearing amber-tinted lenses performed better in the laboratory, suggesting that the contacts made good on their marketing claims."

"The author of the study, however, questioned whether the lenses would make any practical difference. The experiment was designed to detect tiny changes in visual acuity, and that's basically what the tinted contacts produced: tiny, but statistically significant, changes. Existing research suggests that a higher level of improvement must be achieved in the laboratory to expect to draw real-world vision benefits, and the performance-tinted lenses failed to meet that threshold in this experiment. There have been a handful of other studies in which the lenses have fared either slightly better or slightly worse. In the end, it's tough to draw firm conclusions about tinted contacts."

Although the contacts weren't proven to help, just the idea mentally could help Harper. He is a young player who has been successful at every stage of his career and if he is doing something that makes him feel more comfortable at the plate, it should only help.

Even if it might freak everyone else out.