Phillies lefthander Cole Hamels pitched a very shaky 4 run, 7 hit five inning stint on Thursday afterwhich manager Charlie Manuel made a season-worth of blunders, including possibly blowing out 2 important starters.  Colorado starter and winning pitcher Aaron Cook held the Phils scoreless through five innings before being pounded for 3 runs in the sixth and being chased with none out and a 4-3 lead.  The Rockies got an insurance run seventh and made their lead stand up despite an eighth inning solo homer by rightfielder Jayson Werth as Charlie Manuel’s blunders brought the Phillies to a 5-4 Game 2 Loss to the Rockies.

The Phillies Nation blog sums up Charlie Manuel’s “strategy” and blunders resulting in the loss of game 2, as well as providing a game recap, intermingled with my own comments:

Unless a major-league manager makes absolutely atrocious calls on a consistent basis, I usually give him the benefit of the doubt. These guys aren’t idiots, despite what hindsight may show us…

What transpired in Thursday’s Game Two against the Rockies, however, was incomprehensible and indefensible.

With Cole Hamels being knocked out after five so-so innings, Charlie turned to Joe Blanton. As Blanton, the Phillies most consistent starter for much of the season, toed the rubber in the sixth, J.A. Happ was warming up. Blanton pitched a 1-2-3 sixth, but was lifted after the Rockies placed runners on the corners to start the seventh. In came Happ.

It emerged that Hamels’ wife went into labor during the game.  Could we therefore attribute his performance to being distracted?? After he was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the fifth, Hamels high-tailed it for the hospital to join his wife.

Was it Manuel’s fault that Happ was incidentally struck in the lower left leg by a Seth Smith liner? No. Was it Manuel’s fault that Happ was in the game in the first place? You betcha.

Reports on Twitter and on Yahoo note that Happ sustained a lower left leg contusion, but fortunately, the X-rays were negative.

Despite Charlie’s stance earlier in the week that “Happ could be available to pitch in relief in Games One or Two and still be able to go in Game 4, Happ did not belong in this situation. He represented the best possible starting option for the Phillies in Game Three, and his appearance in Game Two was unnecessary.  Scott Eyre has been the lefty specialist for most of the season, so why not turn to him instead?

The Argument for Happ

The reason Happ gives the Phillies the best shot in Game 3 is because the Rockies lineup is MUCH better suited to face right-handed pitching than left-handed pitching. This was made abundantly clear in the first two games of the series. Against lefties, the Rockies were forced to bench Seth Smith (their best player not named Troy Tulowitzki or Todd Helton), Ian Stewart (who has been infinitely more effective than Garret Atkins), and  Brad Hawpe in Game Two, a guy who tied for second on the Rockies in RBI.

The decision to use both men today was ridiculous, and not just in hindsight. Had Blanton and Happ gone through two scoreless innings, I would be stroking the same exact keys on my keyboard, because a best-of-five series as a whole is more important than the middle innings of Game Two. The decision to use Blanton was only slightly befuddling, whereas the decision to use Happ was unexplainable. But the decision to use them BOTH, was idiotic.

It is interesting nowhere in the various game recaps is it mentioned why 3rd baseman Pedro Feliz was lifted by Manuel for Miguel Cairo.  If I’m manager, I want Feliz in an important playoff game with Cairo available for pinch hit duties.

I’m not dubbing Charlie Manuel the world’s worst manager or saying that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but the occurences that took place on Thursday displayed a clear lack of foresight and/or common sense. In 2009, the Rockies team hit .253/.335/.430/ (OPS of .765) against left-handed pitching, and .264/.346/.445 (NL-leading OPS of .791) against right-handed pitching. This is not a small sample size. This is in 1,600 at-bats against lefties and nearly 4,000 against righties. You tell me, would you feel more confident with a lefty on the mound, or a righty?

In recapping the game:

Hamels cruised through the first three innings, allowing a run on a fielder’s choice.  A curveball that hung over the plate to Yorvit Torrealba changed everything.  Torrealba’s two-run home run gave the Rockies a 3-0 lead and silenced the crowd for most of the game.

Hamels was finished after five, and…. allowed four earned runs on seven hits and struck out five.

It took awhile for the offense to wake up.  Ryan Howard’s RBI double and Raul Ibanez’s RBI single made it a one-run game.  The rally was killed when Carlos Ruiz grounded into an inning-ending double play.  The Phillies grounded into a total of three double plays in game two.

Charlie Manuel showed his lack of confidence in his bullpen by using starters Joe Blanton and J.A Happ.  Happ entered the game after Blanton got into a jam, but exited after being struck by a line drive….  Scott Eyre was able to escape the jam, only allowing a sacrifice fly.  An inning later, Antonio Bastardo struck out Jason Giambi with the bases loaded and two outs to end the threat.

And unless I missed something, the Phils had relievers Chad Durbin, Clay Condrey, and possibly Brad Lidge available rather than Manuel’s decision to go with Blanton and then Happ.

Dexter Fowler sacrifice flied twice to add onto the Rockies’ lead.  Jayson Werth homered in the eighth inning, cutting the lead to one.  The ninth inning became interesting when Matt Stairs walked and Jimmy Rollins singled, but the Phillies fell short against Huston Street.

As an aside, Manuel made what could have been the most monument blunder of all, but fortunately it worked for the best.  He sent ace Cliff Lee in to pinch-run for Stairs after his ninth inning walk.   Still seated on the bench and not called upon to pinch hit or pinch run were: catcher Paul Hoover, infielders Greg Dobbs, Eric Bruntlett, Andy Tracy and outfielder John Mayberry Jr.

Reliever Ryan Madson came on and was impressive in the ninth inning going clean on the Rockies on 7 pitches striking out 2.

In returning to discussion of Charlie’s “strategy and game 2 blunders, Phillies Nation notes that there is:

Room for Optimism

All doom and gloom aside, it was nice to see the Phillies go down swinging on Thursday. If you’re going to lose a game, that is the manner in which you want to lose – employing patience at the plate, getting some timely hitting late in the game, and putting the other team’s closer on the ropes.

Shane Victorino hit a bullet when he needed to, but it unfortunately zoomed directly to the glove of second baseman  Clint Barmes to end the game. Tough to deal with, but at least we saw Matt Stairs, Jimmy Rollins, and Victorino have professional at-bats and not get too amped up by the moment they found themselves in.

So if you’re feeling uneasy with the series tied at a game apiece, let optimism reign supreme. Last year, the Phillies did us a favor by winning the first two games of the NLDS and NLCS. Without a Game 5 in the first round or a Game 6 or 7 in the following two rounds, the Phils didn’t make us sweat as much as they could have. I don’t know about you, but after so many years of gut-wrenching losses and negativity, I appreciated not having to have cardiac arrest on the way to a World Series win.

But any well-executed sequel doesn’t incorporate the same plot as the original.

Maybe this year they just wanted to make things more interesting.

For the scores of all playoff games on Thursday in both leagues, click here.

The Phillies have Friday off in order to travel to Denver for games 3 and 4 on Saturday and Sunday.  The Phils at must win at least 1 of the 2 games in Denver to remain in the playoffs.  At present they are undecided as to their game 3 starter while the Rockies appear to be going with Jason Hammel.

For Friday’s and Saturday’s playoff games, click here and here.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 8:16 am and is filed under Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary
Phillies and NL East, Analysis, Predictions, etc
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