Franco’s back on track, so are Phils
PHILADELPHIA >> If Maikel Franco has become consistent at anything, it’s streakiness.
Franco is now a sixth-year Phillie, pretty far removed from the rookie who lit up a bad Phillies’ first rebuilding season in 2015 with a powerful second half, stroking 14 home runs in 80 games, knocking in 50 runs, hitting .280 with an .840 OPS and the promise of so much more to come as the fallen team’s next great hitting star.
Through subsequent season after disappointing season ... he has teammates and coaches who tell him there’s still a reason to believe promises can ring true.
Even manager Gabe Kapler, uplifted after a two-run Franco home run in the ninth inning Thursday set the stage for a highlight-film 6-3 comeback win over the Mets, is trying to put himself in the believers category.
“We’ll always believe in the
upside,” Kapler said of his on-again, off-again third baseman. “The upside is he can capture what he has right now. He’s not going to hit a home run every day. That’s not going to happen. But just a little bit more consistency getting the ball in the air ... a little more makes him a high quality, every-day major league third baseman. Just a little bit more consistency. That’s what we’re looking for from him.”
If the search hadn’t essentially been going on for so long, it would be so much easier to see Franco obliging. He still attacks pitches, still seems to try his very best to only swing at pitches to hit. He does seem calmer at the plate, but is still very prone to turning on balls and grounding them to the left side for easy outs.
Or just pull off altogether for strikeouts.
It’s been a problem in the past, leading to an increasingly streaky plate persona that frustrated former manager Pete Mackanin and quickly did the same to Kapler. Franco consistently went in and out and in the lineup again.
While he lost points at the plate, he never allowed his inconsistency to change his clubhouse persona. He remained a popular fixture, kept winning second chances while the clubhouse personnel evolved.
Seemingly reborn this spring, just like his team with some shiny new lineup names, Franco jumped out of the season gate and within the first three weeks was slashing at .275/.372/.563 with six homers and 18 RBIs. Then as has happened so often in the past, he simply reversed course.
On a day when the Phillies were losing their seventh straight game, 6-4 to the Marlins on Sunday, Franco struck out in a pinch-hit appearance, dropping his batting average to a dismal .204. He had played some 40 games to the tune of a .150ish batting average with only a few sweet power strokes mixed in.
He’s had long belly flops at the plate like that before, of course, because when things streak badly for this infectious clubhouse presence with the slick glove and power to burn, they really streak badly.
But what he tells himself, and what he hears from others, that doesn’t change.
“I try to stay confident, believe in myself,” Franco said. “I know what I’m capable of doing in the big leagues. I just coming in every single day and prepare myself like I’m in the lineup and try to do the best for my team. That’s what I’m thinking about right now. Try to go out there every single day when I have an opportunity to be in the lineup and do my job.”
His team sinking fast, his status creeping to another low point, Franco picked himself up and set about burying the Mets.
Given what was starting to become a rare start, Franco was on base four times in Monday’s series opener, hit his first home run in 20 days and knocked in three runs in a 13-7 Phillies win.
He homered again Tuesday, a two-run shot in a 7-5 win. Had another hit in a game Wednesday won in walk-off fashion. Then Thursday, against one of the league’s elite (or at least he should be) closers in Edwin Diaz, Franco crushed a drive to left-center field in the ninth inning to erase a two-run Mets top half and tie the game at 3-3. Four batters later, Jean Segura drilled a shot to left to walk off a sweep of the mirthful Mets.
The same Segura who just days earlier was talking of his next-door clubhouse neighbor Franco and remarked, “We need this guy.”
One swept series later, the hope is the Phillies finally have him. But with Maikel Franco, isn’t it always only going to last so long?
“It’s not going to be there for all six months,” he said. “It’s back and forth. It happens, but you have to stay positive every single day. Keep working hard every single day.
“Yes, no question, I know I can be a more consistent hitter. But at the end of the day I’m working for that.”
Not-so coincidentally, this halfway improved Phillies team is 43-38, trying to keep the distance between themselves and National League East front-runner Atlanta somewhat manageable. An upcoming division road trip through Miami, Atlanta and New York looms large in their battle for consistency, but in the wake of this welcome fourgame sweep that came on the heels of a seven-game losing skid, there would at least be a breather of appreciation first.
“We never feel like we’re out of a game, and I think a lot of it has a lot to do with the depth of the lineup, and with Maikey swinging the bat the way he’s swinging the bat,” Kapler said. “There’s not much more to say about it. when he’s able to hit the ball into the air in the middle of the field, when he’s able to put the ball in the seats like he’s doing right now, our lineup is deep and dangerous.
“Obviously, the loss of (Andrew) McCutchen was huge. But also for a while we were without Maikel Franco and now we have him back and there’s no surprise that we’re winning baseball games and scoring a lot of runs.”
There have been 81 games played, there are 81 left to play. The Phillies will continue to look for Bryce Harper to heat up, for Rhys Hoskins to stay steady, for Jean Segura to occasionally win games for them, for Aaron Nola (who pitched seven brilliant innings against the Mets Thursday) to remain looking like Aaron Nola again.
If all that happens, it still promises to be a very interesting summer. But hit or miss, the Franco factor looms large.