I don’t have the strength to recap the Phillies 2-0 loss to the 102-loss Baltimore Orioles that 99% of fans could see coming a mile away. I choose instead to highlight Anthony Gose, a former outfielder and 2008 Phillies 2nd round draft pick who successfully reinvented himself as pitcher to get back into Major League Baseball.

Because really, what were we expecting? The Phillies to actually DEFEAT a team with 102 losses while they’re in the thick of a playoff hunt? I guess that’s too much of an ask for a team three games out of first place in the NL East, to topple the mighty juggernaut that is the Baltimore Orioles.

Before last night, if you had asked me to name ONE player on the Orioles for $10 million I would have just left the room. Mountcastle? Valaika? Santander? These are made up names from a 1990 unlicensed Nintendo baseball game….and a bank.

But I digress. Gose, 31-years of age, has fought his way back to the majors with the Cleveland Indians as a relief pitcher. He last appeared in a major league uniform five years ago with the Detroit Tigers as an outfielder.

Gose decided to convert himself to a pitcher in 2017 and spend the last four seasons in various levels of the Cleveland farm system until making his major league pitching debut with the team last night. Gose pitched 1.2 innings, gave up a hit, one earned run, and struck out one during his pitching debut. Most impressively, the left-handed Gose touched 100 MPH on seven of 39 total pitches. His lone strike out came at the hands of Kansas City Royals power hitting catcher Salvador Perez, who recently set the home run record for catchers in a season with 46.


“That was pretty special to me,” Gose said after the game, according to ESPN. “It meant a lot to get the opportunity to go out there again. It’s been a while. I’m excited to be able to have the opportunity.”

He throws gas. Observe.

Drafted as an outfielder, Gose never made an appearance for the Phillies and last appeared in the majors with Detroit in 2016. The greatest thing he did for the Phillies during his two-year career with the team was being included, along with J.A. Happ and Jonathan Villar, in the 2010 trade to the Houston Astros that saw Roy Oswalt come to the Philadelphia.

The Phillies always need bullpen help. Maybe a reunion can happen sometime in the future? Or maybe if he wants to have a successful career as a pitcher he can go somewhere else.