The Phillies embraced absolute chaos tonight when they brought in outfielder Jeff Francoeur to pitch the 7th inning of a 17–3 blowout against the Baltimore Orioles.
At that point in the game, the Orioles had already hit eight homers off the Phillies, whose 22–44 record is the worst in baseball. So what more could go wrong by bringing in Frenchy, everyone wondered?
For a while, it was looking like a pretty good idea. Frenchy's stuff looked shockingly good, and he struck out Nolan Reimold. His 1-2-3-shutout 7th inning was the Phillies' first of the game.
But the Phillies left him in for the 8th. It quickly became evident that Frenchy's 7.1 innings pitched over 8 games with the minor league El Paso Chihuahuas in 2014 had not prepared him to serve as the Phillies' desperation closer tonight.
The Orioles' Ryan Flaherty took Frenchy yard on the first pitch of the 8th inning, and the next batter was hit by a pitch.
Five batters later, the bases were loaded and Phillies second baseman Chase Utley was furious with the Phillies' pitching coach for leaving Frenchy on the mound to struggle, and possibly injure himself.
But the Phillies couldn't pull Frenchy. Because the bullpen phone was off the hook. Seriously.
Frenchy got Chris Parmalee to fly out to center, miraculously leaving three runners stranded on base. The Orioles quickly shut the game down in the 9th, with the Phillies' nightmare ending with a double play.
And the legend of Frenchy grew tenfold tonight.
