Phillies shortstop has brain cramp, forgets how to jump

All players have lapses in judgment. Moments where their brain just stops working and they do something weird, or they don’t do something they should have done. Most people know them as brain farts, and they happen to everyone. Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Freddy Galvis had a particularly perplexing brain fart on Monday night, and it left everyone wondering just what was going on in his brain.

The Phillies are facing the Toronto Blue Jays this week in a home-and-home interleague series, and in the bottom of the seventh inning of Monday’s series opener, Jose Bautista was at the plate with Phillies reliever David Hernandez on the mound. The count was 1-2, and when Hernandez delivered his pitch, Bautista took a swing and lined it into left field.

To get to left field, the ball had to travel past Freddy Galvis. Not just past him, but over him — the baseball sailed over his head before it landed in the grass. When a ball travels over the head of a fielder, most of them instinctively reach up to try and get it. We see that with pitchers all the time. And that’s what Galvis did. Sort of.

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Galvis reached up with both hands to get the ball. But the ball wasn’t just a foot or two above Galvis’ head. It was at least five feet above his head. And he reached up, but with both of his feet firmly planted on the ground, and followed the ball with his head as it sailed away.

So what was happening with Galvis during this play? Did he think the ball was a sharp liner that could have reached his glove without jumping? Was he in the middle of a stretch when Bautista hit the ball, and he just stayed in that position so it looked like he was trying to catch it? Was he playing a game of Simon Says with third baseman Andres Blanco, and they stopped at “Simon says put your hands above your head?” Or did Freddy Galvis forget how to jump, putting his arms up while thinking “What do I do with my legs?!?”

The world may never know what was going through Freddy Galvis’ head at that moment, but it didn’t end up changing the game. The Phillies were up 4-0 in the seventh, and they’d end up winning 7-0. Hopefully Galvis remembers how to jump with both his arms and his legs before their next game.

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