Phillies news & links — Matt Klentak ruins your summer

The Phillies lost their eighth game in a row last night, but thanks to the horrors of May, I’m pretty much numb to it. Every season is a mosaic of wins and losses, and the 2017 Phillies mosaic is going to be mostly losses.

Matt Klentak doesn’t care about your summer

If anyone had doubts about whether or not the Phillies GM was going to follow his plan to trust the prospects (buy the shirt now!), those doubts should be gone now. Klentak sat down yesterday and spoke to the press about the future of this terrible team, a future that’s so very bright. Unfortunately, that bright future won’t be coming to Philadelphia this summer. Klentak reiterated his stance that in order for a player to be promoted, it has to align with an actual opportunity for them to be promoted. And the team may be terrible, but he’s not ready to give up on anyone just yet.

It’s painful to think about having to wait another 8-10 months to see our prospects play together in a major league context. The summer with these Phillies stretches out in front of us like a long beach littered with broken bottles, dead seagulls, and overly tan old dudes showing off their banana hammocks. But this is the team. He’s not ready to give up on Michael Saunders or anyone else. For Klentak and the Phillies organization, it’s not about being flexible or finding small opportunities. It’s about the future, and the big picture. It may seem illogical, but Klentak has a plan, and he’s sticking to it. I have to applaud him for that. We’ll all have to wait and find out together if the results of this plan will earn him applause, too.

Scott Kingery isn’t coming up any time soon, either

Klentak specifically mentioned Double-A second baseman (and the possible second coming of Christ) Scott Kingery in his comments yesterday. With Cesar Hernandez’s injury, the calls for Kingery to be promoted went from cacophonous to completely deafening. And like an evil teenager in an 80s movie, he took a pin and popped that balloon, leaving you crying beside the Tilt-A-Whirl. Here’s what he said to Corey Seidman of CSN Philly.

"I think the human emotion of it — once anybody reaches a certain level, they don't want to be sent back. Nobody wants to be demoted in our jobs. No player wants to come to the major leagues and then be sent back. Obviously we've sent players back before and you can hear the emotion in their voices and how disappointed they are. If you can avoid that, we'd love to avoid that."

Just call that quote The Ghost of Domonic Brown.

So if you want to see Scott Kingery, you’ll have to head to Reading to see the Fightins play, or catch them on a road trip. In case you’re interested, here’s their schedule!

Around the Phight

• If for some reason you want to read last night’s recap, you can find it here.
• The draft is over! And boy, do we have some content for you.
• On Day 1 of the draft, we didn’t have a recap because the Phillies picked two players and we gave you individual profiles on them. They picked Adam Haseley in the first round, and Spencer Howard in the second round.
• Here’s a recap of Day 2 of the draft, and a recap of Day 3 as well.
• If you want to hear actual humans using their voices to talk about the draft, check out the latest episode of The Felske Files podcast.