Philadelphia Phillies utility man Kody Clemens thought the pitch he hit off of Washington Nationals closer Kyle Finnegan with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning Saturday night was too low to be a home run.
The reaction of Nationals right fielder Eddie Rosario, who just turned and gave it a courtesy look as it sailed out of the stadium, said otherwise.
With the Phillies down to their final out, Clemens tied the game with a 413-foot home run. The son of the Rocket hit a 106.6 mph rocket that eventually forced extra innings. Clemens’ swing feels like one of the signature moments of a season full of plenty already given that the Phillies ended up winning on a walk-off sacrifice fly by Bryce Harper in the home half of the 10th.
“Honestly, no,” Clemens admitted when asked if he knew right away that he had homered. “I thought it was too low, to be honest with you. But luckily, it kept going.”
Clemens was called up briefly when Harper was on paternity leave in April, homering in the lone game he ended up playing in against the Cincinnati Reds. Recalled in early May when Trea Turner went on the injured list with a left hamstring strain, Clemens now has three home runs and eight RBIs in just 23 at-bats for the Phillies this season. He’s making it hard to envision sending him back to Triple-A Lehigh Valley whenever Turner is ready to return.
Manager Rob Thomson even admitted after Saturday’s heroics that it was difficult to option Clemens to Triple-A after a strong Spring Training that saw him hit .325 over 40 Grapefruit League at-bats.
“Oh no doubt, because he had a great Spring Training,” Thomson acknowledged. “But it was just the fit for the club. He’s a big-league player. It’s just, at that time it was the fit for the club.”
The reality is that Clemens was a victim of having one minor-league option remaining, while other bench pieces like Cristian Pache and Edmundo Sosa didn’t. Once the Phillies signed Whit Merrifield and decided Johan Rojas would be on their Opening Day roster, Clemens was one of the odd men out.
But when his number has been called this season, Clemens has shown power and the ability to effectively play at both second and third base, in addition to first base, where he took down 309 1/3 innings at the MLB level a year ago.
“Fantastic,” Thomson said of the job Clemens has done. “Almost every at-bat has been a good at-bat. He’s barreled up a lot of balls. The other night against the Mets, he could have had three home runs. He’s just really swinging the bat well.”
Things in baseball have a way of working themselves out. Turner’s return to the Phillies lineup isn’t imminent, even if things are going well in his rehab. Between now and when Turner comes back, Clemens could cool off. For the rest of this year, he’s able to be optioned to Triple-A. A year from now, when he’s out of minor-league options, there’s a very real possibility he spends the whole campaign with the Phillies. However, he could again fall victim to the technicalities of baseball before this season is over.
But as things stand right now, it’s hard to imagine sending Clemens — a player with power and positional flexibility — back to Triple-A. It feels like he’s proven that he deserves to be with the Phillies. And it makes you wonder when Turner is ready to return what that will mean for Pache’s future with the club, assuming the Phillies aren’t prepared to option Rojas.
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