All fans who have watched the Phillies over the years know that they continue to find new and different ways to lose games, so much so that loss # 10,000 is right around the corner.
So it is nice to see the Phillies take care of business yesterday, beating the doormat Cincinnati Reds despite their battered and under-manned pitching staff. The early runs scored by the Philles certainly helped rookie Kyle Kendrick, who picked up his 2nd win in 3 starts, but Kendrick worked out of a jam in the top of the first, allowing 1 run when he could have easily given up many more. Hell, Jon Lieber hasn’t been able to avoid the big inning all season. Michael Bourn and Carlos Ruiz even pulled off a double steal, with Ruiz being the first Phillie to steal home in 10 years.
Last night’s lineup and the resulting victory are both an illustration of Charlie Manuel’s strengths as a manager, and the failures of GM Pat Gillick. Manuel is playing the lineup that gives him the best chance of winning, with Greg Dobbs, Michael Bourn, and Carlos Ruiz, all earning starts ahead of their higher-paid counterparts last night, and rewarding Charlie’s faith in them. The fact that the Phillies are 2 ½ games out of first with the afore-mentioned players, as well as getting 8 innings from Kendrick and Mike Zagurski, both of whom started the year completely off of the organizational radar, is a tribute to Manuel despite all of his strategic faults (of which will continue to confound me, but I digress). Gillick, however, has really had a bad year. The FA signings of Wes Helms and Rod Barajas are abject busts, and his failures to find takers for payroll albatrosses Lieber and Pat Burrell before the season have left the Phillies bereft of prospects, and completely lacking bullpen depth and payroll flexibility. He also did not address the Tom Gordon injury, and now both the bullpen and rotation are woefully short.
Luckily, the Phils have an abundance of bats to fall back on, and can simply outscore many opponents. Since their horrid start, they have suddenly become clutch hitters, scoring many runs with 2 outs lately, and getting career years from Aaron Rowand and Shane Victorino.
Unless Gillick can pull a rabbit out of his hat, the Phillies will only be contenders until the offense collapses under the weight of a pitching staff rapidly approaching Armageddon.
Broadcast Blues
With no game on Monday and an interesting Bill Conlin article defending Harry Kalas in the paper, talk radio and online forums were filled with chatter both defending Harry and railing against the rest of the Phillies’ broadcast team. Most feel that the 3-man booth is a disaster, that Gary Matthews is in over his head, and miss Scott Graham. The biggest source of discontent however is the continued and increasing presence of Chris Wheeler.
Chris Wheeler has nothing to do with wins and losses, yet is a microcosm of how fans perceive the organization and their reputation of being ignorant to their fan base. I read 30 pages of responses to Conlin’s column, and found that Wheeler is almost universally despised by Phillies fans, even though Conlin makes no mention of Wheeler. On the other hand, I could count Wheeler’s supporters on one hand. Of course, this is not news to long-time Phillies fans, which have long ago tired of Wheeler’s smarmy, know-it-all tendencies, and his complete lack of guts to criticize a player (at least Matthews does that). The fact that the Phillies not only continue to employ him, but now have him doing all 9 innings on TV shows that the Phillies’ either have no idea what their fans think, or that they don’t care.
I’m not sure which one is worse.