Two More Phillies Minor Leaguers Called Out for Their Greatness

Feels like every day, we’re repeating ourselves: Lost season.  Unload.  Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild.  Vengeance comes next year.

In the mean time, two more 21-year-olds are Phillies organizational players of the month.

Burrow into the future, lads.  Right now, it’s the only safe place to hide.

Kelly Dugan (RF, Lakewood BlueClaws)

Kelly Dugan hit over .400 for most of July, blasting through Single-A pitching and generally frightening anyone nearby.

With their schedule split into two halves, the BlueClaws have been using the psychological weapon of “forgetting” to nullify their first half struggles, and have sprouted a new beginning of sorts here in the late summer.  Dugan has been raking in seemingly nonstop fashion, knocking 40 hits in 29 games and batting .340 with runners in scoring position.

The key, as usual, is the fact that Dugan was once struck in the head with a baseball.  While hitting from the left as an eight-year-old, a corrupted pitching machine fired a shot uncomfortably close to his brain, thus startling the youngster into standing on the other side of the plate for the remainder of his season.

The incident has worked as a superhero origin story, as the Phillies now get to watch a young, switch-hitting monster rampage through the South Atlantic League.  Sadly, his choice of his own personal heroes is less encouraging.

"In the major leagues, Mickey Mantle, Eddie Murray, Pete Rose and Chipper Jones are considered among the best switch-hitters in baseball history, and Dugan, a first baseman-outfielder, has been particularly enamored with Jones.“I would always pull my socks up like Chipper,” he said.—Eric Sondheimer, Los Angeles Times"

Gross.

Adam Morgan (LHP, Clearwater Threshers)

The Phillies may move Cliff Lee at any moment–don’t let Ruben Amaro’s weirdly straight forward sentiments on the topic fool you.  Unless his goal is for you to be fooled.  Which it might be.

Let’s not do this now.

The point is, if the Phillies wind up moving Cliff Lee, they have a younger version of him stowed away in their farm system all ready to take his place.  He’s even left handed, and maybe even has a casual, devil-may-care attitude about throwing baseballs. Can’t confirm that one.  Let’s put it under “Probably.”

See?  So that’s all fine.

We already gave Morgan a tongue bath for his seven innings of perfect baseball.  And that’s the loss in his 2-1 record for July.  Before that, he added to his 53 K’s over 40.1 innings in two suffocating wins that had Florida State Leaguers headed for the swamps.