Come on ride the train, the ‘Chooch’ train
Charlie Manuel’s Philadelphia Phillies seem to have found a pattern to which all regular seasons adhere to — play above average baseball through June, catch fire in July and early August, fade a bit in late August, and rally for a strong September and a nearly unbeatable October. While the 2010 Phillies are still basically doing their thing, one thing has changed this year compared to regular season’s past: Catcher Carlos Ruiz has emerged as one of the team’s top offense players.
Where would Phillies fans be without the second coming of Johnny Bench? Okay, that’s a stretch and a half, but still, the Phillies catcher’s hot bat lifted the amazingly lifeless Philadelphia lineup during its August hot-streak with clutch RBI after clutch RBI. And with each big hit, the cheers have grown louder and louder, and his legend is equally magnified. In short, he has everyone and their mother in Philadelphia screaming:
CHOOCH!
CHOOOOOOOOCH!
Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz has emerged as one of the team's most clutch hitters.
Things weren’t always this way. Flashback to October 25, 2008, the night of Game 3 of the World Series, back when Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz was just another poor-hitting catcher. Sure he handled the pitching staff well, so we were told, and sure he had a cool nickname, Chooch, but there was nothing in him that suggested he was about to become one of the Phillies most dangerous and clutch postseason hitters.
Until that night, Chooch was a career .242 hitter in his three MLB seasons. His .300 slugging percentage was a joke, which gave opposing pitchers no reason to pitch around him to get to the pitcher’s spot. Every time he came up to the plate in the playoffs, I had the inner dread of expecting, or rather, knowing that Ruiz was about to make another out. Sure there were signs that he was rounding into form — his solid showing in the National League Championship Series against the Dodgers, for instance — but I still didn’t believe in Chooch.
Then it happened, and I started to believe.
It wasn’t when Chooch ripped a towering solo home run off Rays starter Matt Garza that broke a 1-1 tie in a 1-1 series — although it helped. Later on, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard went back-to-back with solo home runs in the sixth inning, but the Rays would rally for three runs in the seventh and eighth, thus setting the stage for the biggest — as well as perhaps the shortest — hit of Ruiz’s career.
After Eric Bruntlet was hit by a pitch to leadoff the ninth, he took second and third after a wild pitch and a wild throw to second, respectively. Tampa manager Joe Madden, who wears some pretty cool glasses if I do say so myself, opted to intentionally walk the next two hitters to load the bases for Chooch. He even brought in outfielder Ben Zobrist to play gym-class second base to take away a base-hit up the middle. (Don’t you remember when that annoying kid in your class would call playing second base and then just stand on the bag like that was the position? If you don’t remember this then YOU WERE THAT KID).
At the time, I can remember running out of nails to chew. For us Philly fans born after May of ‘83, this was the time when we watched opportunities go down the drain, when hope sprung fatal, if you will. Here was our black-hole of an eight-hole hitter — the one batter in the lineup that really was really not an offensive threat — who had already shot his proverbial wad with his earlier home run. There was no way Ruiz was going to be the hero — or so I thought. Then, with a tremendous swing of the bat, Ruiz hit the ball all of 30 feet down the third-base line in what may be the greatest swinging bunt in Philadelphia Phillies history. Even the golden-gloved Evan “Eva” Longoria wasn’t able to bare-hand the ball and successfully throw home in time to beat the chugging Bruntlett.
So began the legend of Señor Octubre…
Has there been a more enigmatic Phillie than Eric Bruntlett?
(Quick side note on Eric Bruntlett. Has there ever been a Philly athlete with a more under-the-radar roller coaster season than Bruntlett. From his disastrous, error-plagued start for the injured Jimmy Rollins in Shea Stadium to scoring two winning runs in the World Series, Bruntlett was there and back again like a hobbit. Also, he had the alpha beard in Philadelphia long before Jayson Werth inherited the title. I mean look at this thing! If there’s one thing I love, it’s a good, shaggy beard that looks like it’s about three weeks overdue for a trimming. In honor of the Jersey Shore, I’m calling Bruntlett’s beard “The Beard Before the Beard”.)
(Also, congratulations to the people that got that Tolken reference in that last paragraph.)
Now it appears that Ruiz’s early career offensive woes are now safely in the rear-view mirror. He is hitting a career-high .292 in 2010 with six home runs and 20 doubles — all very solid numbers for an NL eight-hole hitter. Even with his numbers this year, no one can argue against the fact that Chooch has done his real damage in the postseason. According to Baseball Reference, he’s hit for over .300 in each of his last five postseason series, dating back to the 2008 NLCS. For his postseason career, Ruiz has a .303 average. His on-base-plus-slugging-percentage (OPS) for the past two World Series is a Ruthian 1.194. Even Albert Pujols would blush at that.
This past offseason, the Phillies front office rewarded his strong play with a three-year, $9 million contract extension. Now he’s stepping up once again when the Phillies need him, and we can only hope that Chooch continues to do so as we inch perilously close to another September to remember.
Let’s just hope that the rest of the Phillies bats join him so the team gets back on track for its scheduled season-closing hot streak.
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