J.T. Realmuto finally plays – in a game MLB.com “streams”

Finally, on Mar. 23, J.T. Realmuto took the field for the sort of competition MLB spring games afford training athletes. This was important to the Philadelphia Phillies since they had signed Realmuto to a $115.5 million-dollar contract recently, but their star had broken his throwing-hand thumb Feb. 12, and hadn’t played a single inning yet this spring.

A scheduled start Mar. 21 for the catcher was scratched because of the player’s “general soreness” and, maybe, cold Florida weather. He was MIA Mar. 22 as well.

Phillies fans were beginning to wonder if J.T. Realmuto is really ready.

But there he was finally, sporting a tape-brace on the presumably healed thumb, catching hard-throwing Zack Wheeler.

Unfortunately, watching Realmuto return to the Phillies on the MLB.com streaming service (Film Room by Google Cloud) left more to be desired than the Poulan Weed Whacker Blue Bonnet Bowl, which research tells me was, technically, the Poulan/Weed Eater Independence Bowl.

I digress, but leave this question: What is it about American advertising heads for the last 30 years that suggests a noun with multiple modifiers or a noun and a prepositional phrase is memorable?

But I digress further. In any event, after Wheeler surrendered two first-inning runs on a homer to Lourdes Gurriel on a 97-mph fastball, Realmuto came to the batter’s box for his first competitive swings of the year in the bottom of the inning.

And the presumed Phillies catcher for the next five years homered to left. Perfect swing.

This was good. After a pandemic off-season of Phillies’ hemming and hawing about re-signing Realmuto, then his minor injury, the ancient gods were back in their heavens and all was right with the world.

The MLB.com streaming “thing” could not claim the same status. The sound cut out. I figured, well, I’m not paying. Maybe they do that after one inning. But later the sound returned…and then cut out and in. This sound I speak of here, is ambient sound – no broadcasters, which is fine, but the in and out presentation was iffy. Even after I switched to the good computer.

Enough about that.

Through six innings Realmuto survived a tag play at the plate – the runner was safe – and two more at bats, a ground out and a walk. The ground out was produced by a shift that a computer correctly called.

His pitcher, Wheeler, was racked up a bit by the Jays, but in March it’s absolutely impossible to tell whether any of that involved bad pitch calls by Realmuto or Wheeler “working on something.” Weirdly, the streaming broadcast identified some of the right-hander’s 97-mph deliveries as sliders, which means Wheeler is working on a very high velocity slider indeed, but fine, March is for practice. For both pitchers and broadcasters.

The bottom line, though, was that J.T. Realmuto seemed to be back. And his spring OBP was .667 with a home run.