Ryan Franklin's red beard is becoming a worldwide sensation.


If you're going to grow a manly beard such as Ryan Franklin's, you better be able to man-up in tough situations, and that's exactly what happened last night. A double to Milton Bradley, a walk to Geovany Soto, and a single to Micah Hoffpauir put the game in a one-run balance with the tenaciously-frustrating Ryan Freel pinch-running at third.

Ryan Franklin hadn't faced a worthy opponent to his leprechaun-esque beard thus far this season, but that was before Reed Johnson, and the animal growing on his face, entered the batter's box. If you look at the pitch-by-pitch on Gameday, it'll tell you that Ryan threw fastball after fastball to Johnson. In reality, they looked more like sliders: away, away, down and away, away, etc. Yadier Molina wanted something different - after all, Frank has about 8 different pitches in his repertoire - and finally they were both able to settle on the one that would put Reed away. The splitter.

It's about time that someone asks the question, how long will Franklin be able to sustain this kind of pitching over the course of a season? His K/9 (7.79) is the highest of his career and he has a teeny-tiny, microscopic .191 BABIP, undoubtedly a factor of his success and a potential outlier in the scope of what Ryan's BABIP will be for the entire season. It is for this reason that I look for Ryan to regress a little bit in the coming months, but he's doing the right things so far: strike guys out, keep the ball on the ground, and avoid the free passes. As long as those three things are happening, the legend of Man-Beard will live on.

That's it. Ryan Franklin is officially Man-Beard. I can't think of a more suiting name.