June 23, 2015
Tom McCarthy doesn’t get many positives to talk about on the air these days, so he has to make it count when he can. After Maikel Franco had started last night’s game 4-for-4 at the plate with two home runs, the young third baseman made a great diving stab on a sharply hit grounder off the bat of New York Yankees leadoff man Chris Young.
McCarthy excitedly said, “Have a night, Maikel” before the 22-year-old top prospect even let go of the ball. It didn’t matter, because everyone knew the play’s end result. Franco ended up getting Young by a half-step at first. It was just one of those nights.
It was an exclamation point to what had been an amazing Yankee Stadium debut for Franco, in a pretty stunning 11-8 Phillies win to boot. After the game, Franco emphasized to reporters that Yankee Stadium is a special place to Dominican players. Let’s recap his night at the dish blow-by-blow:
First Inning: Michael Pineda gets ahead of Franco in the count 1-2 and is one pitch away from working a 1-2-3 opening frame. Instead, the towering right-hander hangs an 89 mph pitch that his fellow countryman makes no mistake with:
Third Inning: Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius makes a nice play to get to a ball in the hole hit by Franco, but that’s all he can do. Franco is the third consecutive Phillie to reach base, and all three of them eventually come around to score in the inning.
Fourth Inning: On a night when clobbered hit two homers, this might’ve been the most impressive piece of hitting. The plate coverage in this at-bat was excellent, and it shows how truly dialed in Franco currently is. Pineda throws a 94 mph heater up and away, and all Franco does is flick his wrists and serve the ball into right field to plate two more runners.
Sixth Inning: Chris Capuano is down 3-0 in the count to Franco, and he should’ve cut his losses and thrown ball four:
“I gave him the green light,” manager Ryne Sandberg told CSN Philly’s Jim Salisbury. “He had a good approach. He didn’t get too big with his swing. He stayed on the pitch and drove it. He was the right guy for that spot the way he’d been swinging the bat.”
There’s a lot of room for optimism with Franco. Among what is shaping up to be a stellar rookie class, he ranks third in both wOBA and wRC+ on the season (note: Joc Pederson isn't fair). His 32 total June hits rank second in all of baseball behind Houston’s George Springer. He’s the youngest player with four hits and two dingers in a game against the Yankees since Al Kaline in 1957, per ESPN Stats and Info.
There are also a lot of reasons why this torrid month at the plate won’t last much longer. Franco wasn’t considered a super prospect, after all. For now, my advice is to just enjoy it. The guy is having himself a month, not just a night.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
