Acquired by the Philadelphia Phillies in a trade ahead of the MLB Trade Deadline, it did not take long for Jhoan Duran to electrify the crowd at Citizens Bank Park.
Both with his entrance and with a four-pitch save in his Phillies debut.
Nicknamed the “Durantula” for his love of spiders — “[e]verywhere,” said the closer when asked where he has spiders beyond his spikes and his tattoo — Duran’s entrance is the stuff of legend. It starts with a WWE-style entrance featuring music right from The Undertaker, transitions to the lights going out for a moment as fans bring out their phones, and concludes with Duran taking to the mound as the stadium scoreboards show flames and, of course, spiders.
Phillies fans got to see that first-hand on Friday night, Duran came on in the ninth inning in a 5-4 game against the Detroit Tigers:
If the entrance was electric, what Duran did once he finished warming up was even more so. He needed just four pitches to close out the game, earning his first save with the Tigers:
Quite the night in Philadelphia.
