April 19, 2017
NEW YORK – Freddy Galvis is 27-years-old, but still wears a boyish smile of a seven-year-old more often than not.
Following Tuesday night’s 6-2 win against the New York Mets, the grin was a little more sheepish as he sat at his locker stall in the visiting clubhouse at Citi Field and saw a few media members approaching. It was more like the kid who forgot to do his chores, had been scolded, but was still allowed to have some ice cream at the end of the night.
What Galvis did about an hour earlier nearly cost the Phillies a win over the Mets, a win that would be just the team’s 13th in their last 42 games against their NL East foes to the north.
With his team down a run and a runner on first with two outs in the eighth inning, Galvis popped a ball between home plate and third base. Off the bat, the ball looked to be headed toward foul territory.
Freddy Galvis llegó a primera con este errorcito de José Reyes 🤣 pic.twitter.com/E3jOodlvi9
— Carlos Duarte (@carlosjduarte) April 19, 2017
A disgusted Galvis watched, was annoyed at his unproductive at-bat, and finally made his way up the first base line.
And then Jose Reyes dropped the ball. And then Andres Blanco followed by hitting a ball to the left field fence, a ball that was ruled a ground-rule double after replay review, a ball that Galvis would have scored on, as the go-ahead run, had he ended up on second base and not first base on his own botched pop-up play had he done the easiest thing in the game, something anyone who touches the field can do: hustle.
“I saw it going up on the foul ball side, and then I saw it coming in and said ‘I have to go now,’ and I think it was a little bit late to try to go to second,” Galvis said “I know I couldn’t make it to second. That’s my fault right there. But, like I said, I thought the ball was foul and it came down in the last second. That’s baseball, man.”
“Freddy, he thought the ball was foul and he didn’t run,” manager Pete Mackanin said. “It was so unlike Freddy to do something like that. It was disappointing, but Freddy knows he should have ran. He just thought it was foul. It drifted fair. He knows what he did.”
As Mackanin said, the play wasn’t indicative of how Galvis normally plays the game. Because of that and the fact that the Phillies ended up winning, it’s not going to be an issue that carries into Wednesday. So, no, don’t expect Galvis to be benched for the second game of the Phillies mid-week series at Citi Field.
He already punished himself enough during the painful half inning when the Phillies tied the game but didn’t take the lead. He went through his own walk of shame when, after he thought he scored the go-ahead run, he had to put his helmet back on, leave the dugout, and retreat back to third base (where he would be stranded) following the replay review.
how does Blanco always come through pic.twitter.com/0VTSRMSo8T
— chris jones¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (@LONG_DRIVE) April 19, 2017
the walk of shame pic.twitter.com/OfqjoCMK9w
— chris jones¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (@LONG_DRIVE) April 19, 2017
“When they pulled me back out there to go to third base, that was the run to go ahead. At the moment at felt so bad, man,” he said. “Because I’m used to running the bases, you know, I try to run hard every time. That’s the run to go up on the score. It was my fault.”
Galvis collected a single in his next at-bat, during the Phillies four-run 10th inning.
“(That) was much better,” Galvis said. “Much better, man. I’m just trying to get going, trying to get that base hit. It was a mistake and hopefully it will never happen again. I’ll keep trying to run the bases hard.”
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