Carlos Ruiz lauded by former Phillies teammates
NEW YORK - Ryan Howard said Carlos Ruiz was like the quarterback of the team's pitching staff. Cameron Rupp said Ruiz - who was traded to the Dodgers on Thursday - was the player he wanted to be like ever since Rupp joined the Phillies. Freddy Galvis said Ruiz was a good friend. Pete Mackanin said Ruiz was a pleasure to coach.
NEW YORK - Ryan Howard said Carlos Ruiz was like the quarterback of the team's pitching staff. Cameron Rupp said Ruiz - who was traded to the Dodgers on Thursday - was the player he wanted to be like ever since Rupp joined the Phillies. Freddy Galvis said Ruiz was a good friend. Pete Mackanin said Ruiz was a pleasure to coach.
There was a lot of love for Ruiz on Friday afternoon as the Phillies prepared to play the Mets in the first game in more than a decade without Ruiz on their roster. The catcher returned to Philadelphia on Friday morning, but first he stopped at the Citi Field clubhouse and wrote a message to his former teammates.
"I will miss all of you guys," Ruiz wrote with a blue marker on a dry-erase board. "Good luck the rest of the season. Love you all, Chooch! Gracias."
"I gave the whiteboard a hug," Rupp said. "That was my hug goodbye to him. I read it and just put my arms around it."
Mackanin first met Ruiz in 2009 when Mackanin joined the team as their bench coach. He saw how devoted the catcher was to his craft. Ruiz, Mackanin said, worried more about calling pitches than he focused on his own hitting. He said Ruiz was "almost the anchor of it all."
"He's the kind of guy you love seeing every day, always had a smile on his face," Mackanin said. "It's a combination of everything rather than one part of him."
Rupp studied Ruiz for the last few seasons as Rupp navigated the beginning of his professional career. He said Ruiz was a leader in a clubhouse full of kids.
"He was always there. 'If you need my help, let me know, I'll help you; we're in this together.' You never felt alone," Rupp said. "Everything you did with him, you were a team. There was no individual, no I. It was, 'We're in this together, and we're going to go through whatever we've got to do together and we're going to get out of it together.'
"Just being able to watch him do his thing for the first couple of years of my career, just sat in the back seat and just watched," Rupp said. "I really watched his relationship with Cole, especially last year. They had their wars at times when they would go back and forth on who was right and who was wrong. And that happens, so you learn how to deal with it and how to work through it. I think it was really special to share a clubhouse with him."
Ruiz called Galvis on Thursday afternoon to tell him he had been traded. Galvis wished him luck and the two said they would keep in touch. It was sad to see him go, Galvis said.
"He just cared about people," Galvis said. "You saw him in the clubhouse and he wasn't just like 'You're doing good in the field.' No, it was more, 'How's your life? How's the family doing?' He helped you, and that's one of the things you don't see too much in baseball."
Extra bases
Jorge Alfaro joined the Phillies on Friday to take Ruiz's spot, but he is expected to return to double-A Reading on Saturday morning. Alfaro's left eye is black and blue after he was hit by an errant throw while running to first on Thursday in Reading. He drove to New York with his parents, who have been with him for the last two months. . . . Jeremy Hellickson (10-7, 3.60) will face Noah Syndergaard (11-7, 2.61) on Saturday.
@matt_breen www.philly.com/philliesblog