Phillies fans briefly elated by talk of J.P. Crawford promotion

Freddy Galvis and Cesar Hernandez are not the Phillies shortstops of the future. Perhaps one of them will be here, but it's long been known that J.P. Crawford is going to show up in town eventually and make everything better.

Word came down from Pete Mackanin himself just the other day as the Phillies manager vented some frustration over the performance of Hernandez. The 26-year-old already has a lowlight reel of base running mistakes in the young season, and has seen his success against lefties, as well as his line drive rate, crumble to the point of ineffectiveness. Now he's just kind of... out there... filling a hole. Mackanin has said that he has had conversations with both infielders about this sequence of events specifically; how there's "people" in the minors who want their jobs, insinuating how there may not be room for both of them when those "people" reach the majors, etc.

Mackanin said he wanted to see "improvement" from Hernandez, but whatever time Hernandez thought he had, he may have a more accurate idea now, following the predictions of ESPN's Keith Law this afternoon.

Now, the reason any Phillies fans might have been calling off work for three weeks from today in response to this news might have been due to the fact that 97.3 ESPN's account had tweeted less than an hour before that Law's quote had said "three WEEKS" instead of "three months." Eventually, they just deleted that tweet like it never even happened, snatching back the cheery vibes they'd so willfully provided and replacing them with more ambiguous, uninteresting vibes that suck. Thank you, ESPN.

Regardless, there is now an informal, unconfirmed clock for Crawford's countdown to the majors. Take from Law's [corrected] quote what you will, but the buzz around the Phillies' top prospect is only going to intensify as the summer goes on. And, should he fail to show improvement, you better believe it's going to buzz loudest to poor Cesar Hernandez.