Rhys Hoskins Trolled The Mets With A Leisurely Stroll Around The Bases

Brawny Phillies slugger Rhys Hoskins smashed a moonshot homer to left in the top of the ninth inning of Philadelphia’s 6–0 win over the Mets Tuesday night. The dinger came at the expense of Mets reliever Jacob Rhame, who then had to endure Hoskins taking a looooooong time to round the bases:

What was described in the broadcast as Hoskins taking the time to “soak this all in” was, in fact, Hoskins specifically trolling Rhame, his vanquished foe. Rhame and Hoskins have some recent history, you see—just the night before, dugouts timidly emptied when Rhame threw behind Hoskins in the ninth inning of a blowout Mets win.

Rhame’s wild pitch was seen, by the Phillies at least, as the final act in a series of unwritten rule escalations that started with Mets outfielder Juan Lagares running from first—and thus going first to third—on Robinson Cano’s single in the seventh inning, with the Mets up 8–0. Base-stealing in a blowout is considered poor sportsmanship, and the Phillies appeared to retaliate by throwing at Michael Conforto in the following at-bat. Yes, this is all very stupid, but it ended with a preening post-dinger slow-trot for the ages:

To his credit, Rhame took the whole thing in stride, crediting Hoskins for his smash and diplomatically acknowledging that it’s the victor’s prerogative to determine how long it takes to round the damn bases:

Of course, some chapped-ass madman in the Mets bullpen is marking the date and scrawling Hoskins’s name on a baseball, just as sure as the sun will rise in the morning. But as comeuppance for dipshit code violations goes, the ultra-slow home run trot is mighty cool, and escalating on these terms would make for a far better and funnier form of retaliation. Sock a dinger in the next meeting, and then park your ass between third and home. Stretch it out to 90 seconds! That would rule.