Maikel Franco suffers ankle sprain vs. Tigers

This afternoon, facing a sweep in Detroit, the Phillies broke out their bats and actually used them to score a bunch of runs. It was a symphony of offense that this team has had endless trouble composing all season long, but also seemed like the only way to take down the homering Tigers.

In the middle of scoring a few of their runs, the cost of their outburst became known. The top of the 7th began with an odd body-swapping situation in which Peter Bourjos hit a home run and Odubel Herrera struck out. Freddy Galvis and Maikel Franco then reached base on a pair of singles, with Galvis getting to third. Tommy Joseph knocked a sacrifice fly to center field, scoring Galvis, but when Tigers center fielder Cameron Maybin finally made his throw, he was so off -target that Franco decided to go to second. Upon sliding into second, Franco sprained his right ankle.

There is no word yet on the severity of the injury, but Franco can probably just borrow a boot from Cameron Rupp, who was recovering from an ankle injury himself until a few days ago. Obviously we're sensitive to any sort of damage to Franco, but it seems like just moments ago we were watching him put on pants on a pair of totally healthy ankles.

I am so thankful for Odubel Herrera on snapchat bringing us live feed of Maikel Franco putting on pants pic.twitter.com/w5iFHbE4Ys

— baseballin' (@inthephanattic) May 24, 2016

Now, we can only sit and wait to see how much the difficulty of pants-related processes will increase for Franco in the coming days.