Maikel Franco takes pain-free swings, still hopes to return

Maikel Franco's hopes to return to the Phillies' lineup before season's end were kept alive Wednesday when the rookie third baseman took 20 pain-free swings in an indoor batting cage at Citizens Bank Park.

Batting practice is the next progression for Franco, who has been sidelined since Aug. 11 after breaking his left wrist. He could then head to the Phillies' spring training facility in Clearwater, Fla., to take at-bats in simulated games.

Franco, 23, was relieved by Wednesday's development. The discomfort had lingered when he took swings in the cage the week before in New York. But on Wednesday, he said he felt fine. Ten of his swings were dry swings, the other 10 hitting off a tee.

"When I went to the cage and I tried a couple swings and my wrist was getting better, I said to [Phillies assistant hitting coach John Mizerock], 'Can I take a couple more?' " Franco said. "I'm just happy to not feel something in my wrist."

Franco's first three months as a big-league regular offered promise to the rebuilding Phillies. The Dominican was batting .277 with an .830 OPS before he was plunked last month in Phoenix by a Jeremy Hellickson fastball. He slugged 13 home runs, tallied 22 doubles and drove in 48 runs. A 1.039 OPS in June helped him win National League rookie of the month honors.

"As long as he's 100 percent healthy, then it boils down to how many at-bats he feels comfortable with down in Clearwater," Phillies interim manager Pete Mackanin said. "If he plays two or three games and he feels good and we get good reports and he's anxious to get back, then we'd like to have him back ASAP.

"It would be good to have him back. We miss his bat."

A two-hit game Tuesday night raised Odubel Herrera's batting average to .302, which entered Wednesday as the best among all major-league rookies. Matt Duffy of the San Francisco Giants, long the rookie leader in the category, came into the day batting .301.

Herrera's .302 average also came into Wednesday ranked 10th among all qualified National League hitters. No Phillies rookie has batted .300 while getting the qualified number of at-bats since Marlon Byrd hit .303 in 2003.

Ken Giles has issued only two walks in his 17 innings as the Phillies' closer. . . . The average age of the Phillies' new six-man starting rotation is only 26.3 years old. Aaron Harang, 37, accounts for 377 of the staff's 437 combined major-league starts. . . . The Reading Fightin Phils opened the Eastern League playoffs with a 9-4 victory in Binghamton, N.Y. Reading righthander Zach Eflin held the Mets to six hits and two runs in seven innings.

- Jake Kaplan