Darin Ruf Refusing to Let All This Darin Ruf Talk Die Down

Slugger hitting so many home runs oh my god

Brad Mills-US PRESSWIRE

Meanwhile, a Venezuelan coastal community was terrorized this week by a young man with the endearing baby face of an Amazon River Dolphin and the strength of a thousand loggers.  If that sounds like the worthless, poorly written hyperbole; the stuff folk legends are made of, that’s because that’s basically what’s happening with the Tiburones de La Guaira right now.

Darin Ruf went 2-for-2, with two home runs and six RBI–six!–in Saturday’s game against Anzoategui de Caribes.  In the first three innings.  That’s four in two days, with the garnish of eight RBI, leading to some excitable tweeting by people who may or may not have exploded.

A two run dinger in the first and a grand slam in the third gave the Tiburones almost all the runs they would need, but they for some reason felt compelled to add a few more before settling on an 8-2 victory.  Darin’s fellow Phillies prospect Justin Friend picked up the win after 1.2 innings scoreless, but that will most likely be lost in the shuffle because Darin Ruf scored all the runs in the world.  Then he walked and struck out swinging two times, going through sort of an intense horrible Ryan Howard thing  in the course of nine innings.

That’s eight home runs for Darin in 50 Venezuela Winter League ABs, a .240 average, 15 RBI… uh, yeah.  He’s got, um 12 hits, eight of which are… are those home runs.  Huh.  His slash line is a friendly .240/.345/.740, which aren’t Freddy Galvis numbers, but still supportive in the areas you’d expect for Darin Ruf.  Which is to say, mindless power.  And that is most likely the reason that he has been tucked safely into the designated hitter role for the team, so that we may all gasp in awe and terror at his resounding offense while remaining blissfully ignorant of any defensive issues.  It’s a nice plan that will keep us especially warm as a hurricane bears down on us at an alarming rate.