The Phillies got outfielder Derek Hill from the Chicago White Sox on June 11, the day after Adolis García threw a ball from right field and, as it would turn out, tore his right latissimus dorsi, which knocked him out for the season.

I have been referring to this injury as tearing his own arm off, which is not literally true, but which is much closer to true than you would ever want the idea that you ripped your own arm off to be, for yourself or for an outfielder on your team.

García had been the hoped-for answer to the question, “Is it possible that we might get somebody whose combination of defense and offense in right field is better than Nick Castellanos, and perhaps one who does not bring a beer into the dugout when he is angry?” Unfortunately, García, while a very good defensive outfielder, was flat at the plate in the first part of the season. He had just started to look like an offensive asset (truly: He hit one home run in all of May, but three in the first ten days of June) when he, well, you know. Ripped his own arm off.

Since Derek Hill came to the Phillies the next day, he has been good. He’s what I would consider a solid hitter. He’s also quite a good fielder.

What Hill has had, though, is a an uncanny ability to show up in the highlights, on both offense and defense.

This weekend, he had a walk-off single in the 12th inning of a much-needed win over the Blue Jays. It was only the team’s fourth walk-off of the season, and two of the other three happened on the same day. And honestly, that’s nothing.

Most recently, he hit a go-ahead grand slam on August 3.

Back on June 24, he hit a two-out, two-run, pinch-hit homer that ended up winning the game.

When I was at Nats Park the next day, on June 25, he hit a two-run home run in the ninth inning to cap off a 10-5 comeback win. I was sitting just over the dugout, and that’s when I yelled, “Welcome to Philly!” (I am very embarrassing.)

Average schmaverage; Derek Hill has had a feel for the big moment when he’s hitting.

At least as much as that, though, it’s been his work in the outfield that has made a lot of fans giddy about him. He made a terrific catch just yesterday. A while back, he made a Superman catch as good as any you’ll see.

Most importantly, his robbery of a Juan Soto home run on June 26 is one of the best things that has happened to Phillies fans all year. Juan Soto is their Snidely Whiplash; Derek Hill is their Dudley Do-Right-Field. (He was in center field for that play. Don’t ruin it for me with facts, that’s really mean.)

Of course, this approach doesn’t always work. The other day, he smashed face-first into the wall trying to rob CJ Abrams during the Nats game, and Abrams ended up with a triple.

That was seriously scary.

And it was extra-scary because of the toothpick.

See, when you talk about Derek Hill with people, two things come up. The first is, “Man, that guy can really fly, he is such fun to watch.”

The second is, “Does he have a … toothpick in his mouth?”

He does. Derek Hill bats and runs and plays in the outfield with a toothpick hanging out of his mouth. Specifically, we are told, it is a flavored, watermelon-mint toothpick. (Let me be clearer, because specificity is the soul of narrative: It is multiple watermelon-mint toothpicks. I don’t think there is any suspicion that the toothpick is a talisman that he carries from game to game.)

Fans have embraced it. They call him Toothpick Hill when they are happy with him. I am not immune. When he hit the walk-off yesterday, I texted my baseball-watching friend, “TOOTHPICK GUY!”

But I’m going to tell you the truth: I hate that toothpick, because it’s a bad decision.

One of the infuriating things about baseball is how many things you cannot control. The greatest among them, for a medium team like the Phillies currently are, is the question of how other teams play. The Phillies may make the playoffs and they may not, and while much depends on what they do, much also depends on what happens in other games that have nothing to do with them. Maybe the Braves will slump again. Maybe the Diamondbacks, or the Cubs, or the Padres, or all three, will slump. Maybe two out of three of those teams will go on a tear, another Phillie will tear his arm off, and we’ll be hosed.

There is also so much about a team’s own performance that, while technically in their control, feels mystical. Why does somebody like Kyle Schwarber suddenly stop hitting? Why does Orion Kerkering suddenly start walking everybody?

Consider this: The Phillies picked up Luis Arraez from the Giants at the trade deadline, and he’s done well for them. But as of the end of last night’s game, I believe he’s 0 for his last 11, when, according to the Phillies radio announcers, he hadn’t gone more than 0-for-8 over the entire rest of the season.

(A side note: I saw fans blaming the Phillies hitting coaches for this, as if they took Arraez on and immediately changed something about the way he hits, which is the kind of deeply silly, ungenerous theory fans come up with because it pains them to believe in straightforward misfortune, and they would rather believe they are being wronged by malice or ineptitude.)

So there is a lot that you cannot do anything about, and learning to be at peace with that is just part of it, particularly if you do not relish the part of sports fandom where you are furious.

But deciding to put a sharp object in your mouth when you are hitting, running, sliding into bases (Hill is speedy; it’s one of his best qualities), throwing yourself at the ground in the outfield, and willingly running into walls? That’s a decision. You control that.

Listen, it could be fine. He’s gotten away with it so far. But I cannot stop thinking about how infuriating—how gut-level infuriating—it would be if the toothpick that everybody knows is a risk went into his gum, his cheek, the roof of his mouth, or (particularly) the back of his throat. What happens if he swallows it? When he crashed into the outfield wall against the Nats, and people were afraid he might be really hurt, I wondered if somebody might put a stop to it—say hey, you know what? No. It hasn’t happened.

Last year, at the trade deadline, the Phillies acquired Harrison Bader, another outfielder capable of the odd spectacular defensive play. They didn’t keep him, though; he went to the Giants this year. Phillies fans have had few regrets about it; Bader has split this season between stinking and being injured. But he made news recently because (reportedly) he was out and about at 2:00 in the morning riding around on an electric scooter, he ran into the back of a fire truck, and the fire truck somehow ended up running over his foot. The Giants have suspended his pay for, I can only assume, violating some kind of explicit or implicit Don’t Be A Reckless Doofus Clause.

It pains me to say it, because Derek Hill seems like an exceptionally lovely guy who is well-liked by his teammates, and unlike Bader, he does not look like a mulleted 1980s teen movie villain (an observation that’s been made by multiple people before me, by the way). But running around with a toothpick in your mouth is a bit of a Reckless Doofus move also.

You get away with everything until you don’t. It’s true that serious injuries from toothpicks are unusual enough that they make the news; I’m not that worried that he’s going to do something like that. But yesterday, YouTube served me up a video called “Ranking the Dumbest Injuries in Baseball History.”

And when you realize that guys have hurt themselves celebrating, having nightmares, playing Guitar Hero and eating a donut, it’s clear that anything is possible.

I know they’re superstitious. I know they love their routines. Bryce Harper has a specific way of shimmying his knees at the plate. Alec Bohm has a very particular inhale-exhale move that I can identify even when I’m watching his back. Over at the Yankees’ outfit, Jose Caballero has his wide variety of “I’m not touching you” delaying tactics. They’re odd ducks. They are. And I do not want to deprive a guy of his little weirdsies that he thinks make him perform well.

But can we get him a blade of grass, maybe?