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Sometimes, good things happen in baseball, and it helps to stop and look at them. Last June, Maikel Franco held a coming out party in New York, inviting only the Yankees' pitching staff. It was well-attended.
The next night he went 0-for-4 with a strikeout, but we don't talk about that. "Maikel Jack" left New York having gone 6-for-12 with a double, three home runs, and ten RBI. It was quite a time to be alive.
Flash forward to today, and Franco was entering this series with the Brewers in the midst of a 3-for-30 slump. But, being a young hitter, he was always going to bounce back in a big way. That big way seems to have found him in Miller Park, as he has gone 6-for-9 this weekend with three home runs and seven RBI, making everyone wish they hadn't called him "Maikel Jack" last year so that nickname could be invented for the first time again and used here.
A "career day" Pete Mackanin called last night's performance, which also included some defensive gems, at one point nailing a runner at first base from his ass.
So, it's now just a new "Phillies thing" that entering the occasional weekend in a visiting stadium, Maikel Franco's eyes will roll back in his head and he'll enter a trance-like state, during which he will dominate so vigorously that he'll start playing third base from a sitting position just to give the other team a shot.