Since he was selected by the Phillies in the 20th round of the 2006 draft, Domonic Brown has made a slow, steady climb up the minor league ladder. Witness the games played at each level from 2006-2009:

(I’m ignoring brief three-game stints in 2007 at High A and 2009 at the Rookie level)

2006 – Rookie (34)
2007 – Short Season (74)
2008 – Low A (114)
2009 – High A (66), Double-A (37)

As you can see, the process accelerated last season with a mid-season promotion to Double-A Reading, and continued into 2010. After crushing Eastern League pitching for three months (15 HR, 47 RBI, .318/.391/.602), he was promoted to Triple-A in June and kept up the hotness (5, 21, .346/.561/.951). That’s 20 homeruns, 67 RBI, .327/.391/.589 combined, if you’re scoring at home.

So when the Phillies needed someone to replace the injured Shane Victorino, they reached down to Lehigh Valley and called upon Brown to make his major league debut.

He started in right field against the Diamondbacks on Wednesday and managed to do okay – 2-3 with a double, two runs scored, and two driven in in support of Roy Halladay. If you wanna get technical, his first major league run scored, in the second inning, was the eventual winning run. (Halladay went the distance, giving up one run on six hits and striking out nine.) Even if you take the realistic view and figure that his numbers will fall somewhere between Victorino and Jayson Werth, that’s a pretty solid way to start a career.