2008 Choice Williamsport Crosscutters #6 Travis d'Arnaud

Mets 5, Phillies 0
Game 132 - Tuesday Night, August 27th in Flushing
Record - 60-72, Tied for 3rd Place, 19 1/2 games behind the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  Mets starting pitcher Jon Niese single-handedly defeated the Phillies in this game, pitching a complete game shutout and delivering a three-run double.

What It Means:   In yesterday's game summary post, I optimistically noted that the Phillies would need to go 22-9 the rest of the way to finish with a winning record.  That slipped to 22-8 with this loss to the Mets.  Maybe instead of keeping track of this, I should just start a countdown to the number of days until pitchers and catchers report to Clearwater in February.

What Went Wrong:   Niese limited the Phillies to three hits, two of which came from Michael Young.  Phillies starting pitcher Kyle Kendrick turned in another Kendrickian performance, walking four and allowing five runs in his six innings of work.  Only one of Kendrick's runs allowed was earned as a result of a costly throwing error from first baseman Kevin Frandsen.

Featured Card:   The Mets traded away Marlon Byrd and starting catcher John Buck to the Pirates on Tuesday, handing the starting catching job to rookie Travis d'Arnaud.  The young catcher made his debut on August 17th, and he's only hitting .125 through his first nine games.

d'Arnaud was drafted by the Phillies in the 37th round of the June 2007 amateur player draft and began his professional career in 2007 with the GCL Phillies.  He was promoted to Rookie A Williamsport in 2008, and was eventually promoted to the Low A Lakewood BlueClaws to finish up the season.  He helped lead the BlueClaws to the 2009 South Atlantic League championship and a few months later was traded to Toronto in the deal that brought Roy Halladay to the Phillies.

Three years later, d'Arnaud was again dealt for an ace as the Blue Jays shipped him to the Mets as part of the R.A. Dickey deal.  I have three d'Arnaud cards in my Phillies collection, and I've previously featured two of those cards here and here.  Presented here is the third, from his time with the Williamsport Crosscutters.