* * *  UPDATE: Hoskins hit another home run on Thursday to bring his total to 18  * * * 

He’s the 24-year-old kid from Sacramento, California with the unusual first name. But mark my words, it is a name that everyone – including the Dodgers – will soon come to know very well.

His name is Rhys Hoskins and since his major league call-up by the Philadelphia Phillies on August 10, 2017 he has slugged 17 home runs in only 116 major league at-bats. If you’re into such things, this figures out to be one home run every 6.8 at-bats.

Like I said, everyone will soon come to know this kid very well.

Hoskins was selected by the Phillies in the fifth round of the 2014 MLB First-Year Player Draft out of Cal State Sacramento. Through four minor league seasons he posted a slash-line of .287 / .375 / .532 for an OPS of .907, which earned him an invitation to Phillies major league spring training camp this past March. All the 6′ 4″ / 225-pound utility outfielder / first baseman did was post the highest OPS (1.238) in camp with a .286 batting average, a .429 on-base percentage and a .810 slugging percentage in the 11 major league spring training games in which he played.

Through Wednesday afternoon’s game against the Miami Marlins in which Hoskins (wait for it…) slugged his 17th home run of the season, he is 36-for-116 (.310) with a ludicrous on-base percentage of .434 and a slugging percentage of .784 for an alien-like OPS of 1.218. And here’s the kicker. In only 32 major league games, Hoskins’ 17 home runs ranks him third on the team for the entire season behind only Phillies first baseman Tommy Joseph‘s 21 home runs and third baseman Maikel Franco‘s 20. As such, there is an exceptionally good chance that Hoskins will be the team leader in home runs when the Dodgers roll into the City of Brotherly Love next Monday.

With the Phillies currently owning the worst record in all of baseball, it’s understandable that Hoskins is getting very little media play on the West Coast. But with the Dodgers beginning a four-game series against the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park this coming Monday, he most certainly will.
(Photo credit – Laurence Kesterson)

Although the Phillies still have the dubious honor of owning the worst overall record in the MLB this season at 55-89 (.382) and were the first team to be eliminated from postseason play, they are very much in a position and would love nothing more than to rain on the Dodgers’ postseason-bound parade when the two teams square off for a four-game series at Citizens Bank Park beginning on Monday, September 18.

You have been forewarned, Dodgers … Don’t blow it.