Big Leagues

ERIK KRATZ stood at his locker and absorbed it all once again. The bigness of the crowd, the bigness of the game, the bigness of his 3-hit day in yet another last at-bat victory for the big-league club. For a 32-year-old guy who has kicked around the minor leagues for more than a decade, who was driving a 1988 Dodge D50 until it finally gasped its last breath just a few weeks ago, it all seemed so out-of-body. Pinch-run for Ryan Howard and score the winning run Monday? Who would have thought?

Lehigh Valley infielder Kevin Frandsen and pitcher Tyler Cloyd were named to the International League All-Star team Wednesday. The International League team will take on the Pacific Coast League All-Stars on July 11 in Buffalo, N.Y. The IL team is made up of 13 players selected by field manager and general managers, media members and online fan vote and the remaining 17 players are chosen by the league office. Cloyd, one of the elected players, is 7-1 with a 2.17 ERA for Lehigh Valley this season in 11 starts.

For 27 years, the Carpenter Cup has been more than just an all-star high school baseball tournament. Since the tournament's inception in 1986 at Veterans Stadium, event not only provides top-notch competition, it also gives the athletes a chance to realize a major league dream. This year's semifinals and championship game will be played at Citizens Bank Park, the home of most of these players' big-league idols. Ultimately, this dream would not be realized for the Inter-Ac/Independents, who fell 5-3 to defending champion Lehigh Valley, at Ashburn Field on Friday morning.

READING, Pa. - Freddy Galvis shipped some of his bats to double-A Reading last week and his fellow countryman Cesar Hernandez used one of them to hit his first Eastern League home run. That's a cool story, but it's not the first time the Venezuelan infielders have been linked and, if all goes according to the Phillies' plan, it will not be the last either. Galvis, after spending most of the last two seasons at double-A Reading, is making a strong first impression at the big-league level, particularly with the way he has played second base for the Phillies in the absence of Chase Utley.

Going into this uncertain season, Freddy Galvis was one of the Phillies' biggest question marks. With a quarter of the regular season in the books, Galvis has raised some questions of his own with his performance. Questions such as: If the Phillies had known they would get this kind of production from Galvis, would they have committed to that new contract for Jimmy Rollins? And: Why didn't they expect Galvis to be ready for the big leagues? And what might that say about the way the Phillies evaluate their own minor-league prospects (ahem, Domonic Brown)

They look like they could be brothers, a couple of 6-foot-4 towheads with high cheekbones and, on this afternoon, big country smiles. Hunter Pence and Jake Diekman went through a whirlwind of emotions on Tuesday afternoon. Pence drew boos for a costly error, his second defensive misadventure of this homestand, then cranked the game-winning home run in the 10th inning. The homer - which for added delight came at the expense of old pal Brett Myers - earned a victory for Diekman in the young lefthander's major-league debut.

WASHINGTON - Sports fans love a phenom. They enjoy the buildup and want to see if the player can match the seemingly unbearable hype. That explains so much interest in Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper, who is now hitting .261 with no home runs, three RBIs, and a .378 on-base percentage in barely a week as a big-leaguer. Forget the small sample size of statistics. Harper has been in the public consciousness since appearing on the Sports Illustrated cover at the age of 16. Now just 19, the 6-foot-3, 215-pound Harper is a player people can't stop watching.

Washington prospect Bryce Harper will make his big-league debut Saturday in Los Angeles when the Nationals play the Dodgers to determine (at this admittedly early date) the best team in the National League. Harper started the year with the triple-A Syracuse Chiefs where he's batting a puny .250 with a single home run in 20 games. But don't let the numbers fool you. The 19-year-old outfielder - the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 draft - has been the most ballyhooed prospect since the Nats drafted pitcher Stephen Strasbug a year earlier.

If this season is anything like Ruben Amaro Jr.'s first three as Phillies general manager, there is going to come a time in July when he starts looking for help from another organization. You may not like the fact that the Phillies have failed to win a World Series since Amaro succeeded Hall of Famer Pat Gillick as the team's GM, but that does not change the reality that the current GM has significantly strengthened the team at the trade deadline every year since he took control.