Jhoan Duran owns the night and feels the love in ‘electric' Phillies debut originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Jhoan Duran was light on sleep Friday night.
He’d had to wake up in the wee hours to catch a flight from Minneapolis to Philadelphia. And once he arrived, the Phillies’ new closer didn’t have much chance at a peaceful hotel snooze.
“I’m not sleeping because my little boy, he’s got a lot of energy,” Duran said.
At Citizens Bank Park, all was well on the energy front.
Duran made his elaborate entrance, locked down a 5-4 win over the Tigers in four pitches and enjoyed his first post-trade deadline taste of Phillies fans’ passion.
“I can see they love baseball,” he said. “They do everything for baseball, so I love that.”
Duran spent his first four MLB seasons in Minnesota, where he saved 74 games and compiled a 2.47 ERA. By many metrics, he’s been elite this year. According to Baseball Savant, Duran ranks in the 99th percentile in off-speed run value, barrel percentage and ground ball percentage. Duran has allowed a single home run. His four-seam fastball’s averaged 100.2 mph.
New Phillies outfielder Harrison Bader saw Duran’s Twins dominance firsthand.
“Plain and simple, he has close-the-door stuff,” Bader said pregame. ”That’s the best way to describe it. … Baseball happens, maybe he puts runners on, he’s got strikeout stuff to go and strike out three in a row.”
The Phillies did their best to make Duran feel at home in his debut.
The flashing lights and pulsating music and virtual flames were ready to roll as he jogged out for the ninth inning. Duran did so wearing No. 59 because Phillies manager Rob Thomson offered it up.
“He was very respectful,” Thomson said. “I called him and we were chit-chatting. I just said, ‘Hey look, the number really doesn’t mean much to me, but if it makes you feel better, I’m all-in.’ He said, ‘Well, you know, yeah …’ And I said, ‘Then it’s yours.’
“The only one that’s upset at this point is my wife because all her merchandise has 59 on it. Now we’ve got to go find her new stuff.”
Thomson’s switched to No. 49, which he said is to honor Yankees great and friend Ron Guidry.
Following the Phils’ three-run seventh inning and two-run eighth, the night culminated in Duran’s ninth.
“It looked good from my locker,” Bryce Harper quipped after his seventh-inning ejection. “We all know what it was like in Minnesota when he came into the game. Lights-out stuff.”
Thomson described Duran as “electric.”
“Four pitches. The first pitch was a 98 mph split,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve seen that before. He threw strikes. He was calm, cool. It was great.”
Duran’s first pitch was technically his splinker, a go-to splitter-sinker hybrid. In fact, so were his second, third and fourth pitches.
After he grabs some shut-eye, there’s a lot left to show.
“I haven’t thrown my fastball yet,” Duran said.
