Phillies: Freddy Galvis’ return has been essential to their success

Freddy Galvis has been instrumental to the Phillies’ offensive success

Freddy Galvis never wanted to leave the Philadelphia Phillies, who discovered him as a teenager and brought him into the organization.

He made his MLB debut in red pinstripes in 2012, and spent the first seven seasons of his career in Philly before becoming a free agent and bouncing around. The Baltimore Orioles traded him back to the Phillies at the deadline, bringing Galvis back to the place he has always considered home.

Recovering from a quad injury at the time of the trade, Galvis wasn’t able to make his Phillies return for almost a month after the deadline. Finally, on August 25, he finally got to play for his home team.

After getting off to a slow start in seven games at the end of August (.167/.250/.167, .417 OPS), Galvis has heated up in September. During the Marlins series last weekend, he hit his first Phillies home run since September 14, 2017, which was also his first career leadoff homer.

Galvis has now homered three times in his last four games. Coming into Monday’s game, he was hitting .280/.321/.560 with a .881 OPS over his last seven games, with a pair of home runs, a double, seven runs scored, and seven RBI; he only struck out twice in 28 plate appearances.

In September, he’s slashing .333/.375/1.000 with a 1.375 OPS, including his most recent home run on Monday:

Can Freddy Galvis help the Phillies make the playoffs?

The last time the Phillies played October baseball was their last division title season in 2011, the year before Galvis made his big-league debut.

But coming into the franchise at the end of the Golden Era provided Galvis with the opportunity to learn from some of the Phillies greats who created the Golden Era:

"“I played with the guys who won the last World Series with this team, and I know how they go about it and how they play the game and do all their stuff. They passed it to me.I always talked to Chooch [Carlos Ruiz]. I talked to Jimmy [Rollins]. I learned from Chase [Utley]. I learned from [Roy] Halladay and Cliff [Lee]. All those guys. I knew the mentality that they had to play.”"

Maybe that wisdom can help his new Phillies team this time around. His bat certainly has so far.