Phillies Demote Freddy Galvis to Lehigh

Perhaps as much for his sake as for ours, the Phillies optioned Freddy Galvis to AAA Lehigh Valley after last night's 12-6 mugging at the hands of the greatest team the world has ever seen, the Toronto Blue Jays.

Words cannot describe how bad Galvis had played this year... well... I guess that's not entirely correct because I'm going to use a bunch of words to describe it. And others will help too...

Freddy Galvis, who ranks 386th out of 386 MLB players in BA, OBP and OPS, is headed for Triple-A Lehigh Valley: http://t.co/3R0dSqJ2jW

— Ryan Lawrence (@ryanlawrence21) May 9, 2014

OK, so yeah, maybe it wasn't very hard.

Galvis had tallied two hits in 42 official at-bats this year for a slash line of .048/.109/.048 and an fWAR of -0.9, so it's easy to see why the Phillies sent the defensive super-whiz down. Also, stuff like this...

Galvis once again hurt the Phils in a big spot in Thursday night's loss to Toronto, grounding out weakly to end the top of the fourth with the bases loaded, two outs, and the Phillies down 4-1. You were not alone if you would have preferred A.J. Burnett in that particular situation.

While Freddy has never been terrific at the plate, a career .213/.253/.343 hitter in 468 career PAs, he has never been this bad. The hope is Galvis will be able to play every day in Lehigh, find his stroke, and make it back up to the Phils at some point this year, where he can be the super-sub, utility infielder the team was counting on.

And don't forget, Galvis' leg was almost complete consumed by a flesh-eating bacteria this spring (OK, it was just a knee infection due to MRSA but c'mon, flesh-eating bacteria sounds way cooler) and opened the season on the disabled list.

"He needs to go and play and get at-bats and just gather himself a little bit," manager Ryne Sandberg said after last night's game. "He might have been rushed up here a little bit with not having spring training."

So, Freddy and his leg will head down to Lehigh to work on hitting the ball safely into play or getting on-base via the acquisition of four balls in a single at-bat, something he hasn't done all that much of lately. A corresponding move will be made later today to replace Galvis, likely Reid Brignac, who hit two home runs Thursday night for the Iron Pigs and is hitting .284/.357/.514 with 5 HRs and 21 RBIs in 123 PAs.

But, just so we end all this on a good note, let's close with some happy Galvis memories, because we just love the little guy so. Here he is this year, in spring training, pre-flesh eating bacteria.

Here is in September of last year, making the Braves cry...

And here is that very cool moment last year when Freddy walked it off against Aroldis...

Come back soon, Freddy. Fix whatever is ailing you.