Phillies news and rumors 4/28: Prison baseball story time with John Kruk
Sometimes on West Coast games, you count on the broadcasters to make things interesting enough to keep fans on the East Coast awake for the entire game.
With dominant performances from Ranger Suárez and Alec Bohm in a Philadelphia Phillies win over the San Diego Padres Saturday, the game was plenty entertaining enough. But John Kruk still did his part in the NBC Sports Philadelphia broadcast booth to make sure fans were hanging on his every word.
In the top of the seventh inning Saturday evening, Kruk told a story about how when he was playing winter ball in Mexico, his team would play an exhibition every year against a team of inmates at a prison. This may sound like the plot to The Longest Yard, but somehow it’s even more insane.
What really sticks out in this story are the moments where Kruk and Tom McCarthy have to pause to announce the baseball game.
McCarthy at 1:15: “There’s a line drive to left field by Turner, and that’s gonna go all the way to the wall. Turner is gonna glide to second base. He’s got his…”
In yesterday’s news and rumors, I wondered if Bohm’s hot start is a sign that he’s finally reaching his star potential at the plate. In the story, I noted that he would need to hit for power on a more consistent basis to be the best version of himself. Well, Bohm didn’t waste any time in taking that advice, as he crushed a two-run home run off of Dylan Cease in the top of the first inning Saturday night.
Taijuan Walker will make his season debut Sunday. Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was pretty frank in his assessment of Walker earlier this week when talking to MLB.com