Thursday gave us our first Panda sighting of the young season with portly Braves third baseman Pablo Sandoval changing the course of Thursday’s season opener in Philly with one mighty swing. The generously-proportioned Sandoval, whose plump figure surpassed the minimum “dad bod” requirements many, many pounds ago, was served a 92-mph fastball from Phillies ace Aaron Nola and knew just what to do with it, depositing Nola’s 0-2 offering into the right-field seats at Citizens Bank Park. Sandoval’s pinch-hit blast (clocked at an astounding 111.5 mph exit velocity) not only ended Nola’s afternoon, but it tied the game at two with two outs in the seventh inning.
A scarcely-used reserve at this late stage in his career, few could have predicted Sandoval’s late-inning heroics, least of all Twitter user “Freddie’s Stubble” (which promotes itself as a Freddie Freeman parody account), who offered to get a panda tattooed on his rear end if the 34-year-old, by some miracle, tied the game. Which is precisely what happened.
Now that Panda has done the deed, will Freddie’s Stubble follow through on his promise? Apparently not.
That’s a letdown, though if I were in his shoes, I’d probably weasel out of it in a similar display of cowardice. At least Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians (a man of integrity unlike myself and the faceless mastermind behind the Freddie’s Stubble account) stayed true to his word by getting a tattoo after his team’s triumph in Super Bowl LV, though admittedly, it wasn’t on his butt.
If you’re curious how the game turned out, the Phillies went on to win in extra innings with Jean Segura plating Bryce Harper on a walk-off single to left field with two outs in the tenth. The NL East rivals will get a breather Friday before returning to the diamond Saturday for Game 2 of their three-game set.
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