Domonic Brown Shoe-in for Rookie of the Night
By Justin Klugh
Domonic Brown, if you’ll recall, is the lord and savior of Phillies baseball. He is offense incarnate. He is footprints in the dirt. He is blowing minds and bursting blood vessels from his home state of Georgia to One Citizens Bank Way.
And finally, after all that message board trolling, traffic jam daydreaming, and happy hour hollering, he is a Major League baseball player. Thanks to you and your opinion to bring him up.
So, thank you.
“HE IS THE CHOSEN ONE,” you shrieked, as the bartender made a mental note to cut you off. “AND HE WILL SAVE US ALL.”
Phillies 7, Diamondbacks 1
Any midseason shake up was going to have in include Brown. He’s the highlight of the farm system, kicking chickens and hurling barn cats with precision and skill not seen down there since we had like a ton of other prospects who were also good and have now vaporized into organizations like Cleveland or Seattle.
So, when he strolled to plate after jayson Werth for the first time, the 44,000 fans who’d beem muttering his name for months stood up and clapped. And when he doubled off the outfield wall to drive in an RBI in his first Major League atbat, even the people in the bar I was in put their quizzo cards down for a second to cheer.
Yeah. It was a huge deal.
ESPN tried to outmatch Brown’s debut with a “Ooooh, look at these two pitchers who have thrown no-hitters this year” frame, but the Phils didn’t really, in baseball terms, “give a shit” about Edwin Jackson’s little thing from a while back. They proved this with a raucous right hits and five earned runs. Jackson left after five innings, trusting his five-run deficit to the Diamondbacks bullpen, who gave up four more hits and two more runs.
On the other side of the no-hitter vs. no-hitter (well… perfect game), Roy Halladay barely noticed he was pitching in a baseball game and struck out nine Snakes, going the distance for a(nother) CG, giving up a single run and six hits, and not really even caring when a comebacker struck him in the leg and dribbled over to Greg Dobbs.
With seven straight wins and the Mets content to further bury themselves under the toxic soil of failure, the seemingly imminent addition of Roy Oswalt to a Halladay-Cole Hamels rotation for the cost of a J.A. Happ and prospects sounds like a welcome addition, until Happ has the career of his life down in Houston and Roy Oswalt explodes for some reason.
But, with the Mets looking to possibly burn their resident injury-wishing warlock before the trade deadline, maybe luck is bouncing its way back to “tolerable” in Philly.