THINKS THE EAGLES STOLE ONE
Charlie Manuel, in the hours before Game 1: "We need to score some runs early."
It will the the story of this NLCS -- whether or not the Phillies can score early runs off of the Dodgers' starting pitchers, beginning with Clayton Kershaw. Everybody can see it. Everybody knows it. There is little mystery here, no great insight. The imperative is obvious. The Phillies need to win the games before the Dodgers' formidable bullpen becomes an issue.
"It's important for us to go out and get the lead," Manuel said, speaking in the pre-game interview room at Dodger Stadium. "I think that definitely helps our starters..."
And then he talked about the lefty-laden Dodgers bullpen, backed up by closer Jonathan Broxton. It is the strength of the Los Angeles team. And the dynamic is different this time because the Dodgers have the homefield advantage. The Phillies need to grab a game here in the first two -- and seeing as how Pedro Martinez is starting Game 2, a huge gamble by gambling Charlie Manuel, the imperatives for Game 1 continue to grow.
"I think whenever we play in Citizens Bank Park, I think we love to play there and that's an advantage for us, and I think the same here for the Dodgers," Manuel said. "...At the same time, it all depends on the starting pitching and also...we need to score some runs early. I think if we do both of those things, that's how you quiet the crowd -- take the crowd out of it or keep them calm or whatever, and I think good pitching will stop that, just like it will stop good hitting."
Bill Rhoden of the New York Times offers up a little snack to fuel the fires until the Phillies and Dodgers drop the puck on Thursday night.
In a column the other day, Rhoden offered up a thesis that, truth be told, is probably the majority view in the country (and especially in the part of the country where television executives live). Along the way, he acknowledges that a Yankees-Phillies World Series would be "intriguing," as would all of the other potential matchps, for that matter.
Now for the big however:
Still, what Major League Baseball needs is a great World Series, a Series for the ages. And with all due respect to those two other potential matchups, it’s a Yankees-Dodgers World Series that could take the game back to its roots at a time when baseball desperately needs to recover a portion of the trust, if not the innocence, that it has lost in the steroid era.
You know, with all due respect.
Baseball needs a World Series for the ages, one that reinforces its roots and, yes, its relative purity. Granted, this is a lot to ask one World Series matchup to accomplish, but baseball needs an authentic fall classic.
It needs Yankees-Dodgers, for the good of the game.
You know, for the good of the game.
Yeesh.
Join Rich Hofmann for a live Phillies chat at 11a.m.
Charlie Manuel has managed every game of the playoffs this year as if it were an elimination game, and it takes your breath away -- the boldness, the bullseye he willingly paints on his back, the idea that post-season baseball is the time to go for it, to clearly and unequivocally put your ass on the line. It is striking.
There once was a manager around here named Jim Fregosi, and he was all about that old Jeopardy category, "Actors and their roles." Under Frego, there were seventh-inning relievers and there were eighth-inning relievers and there were ninth-inning relievers. There were guys you used only when you were losing in the middle innings and guys you only used when you were winning. The roles were so well-defined that the guys in the bullpen could have made the pitching changes themselves. There never would have been the need for the sight that Phillies fans have now seen twice in this series, of pitching coach Rich Dubee doing semaphore in an attempt to implement the strategy that he and Manuel had just concocted in a crisis.
In Game 2, when J.A. Happ took that rifle shot off of his leg, Dubee was forced to spell out a big capital E in the air to get the bullpen to realize they wanted Scott Eyre. In Game 3, when Eyre went down with an ankle sprain while trying to make a play in the field, Dubee was forced to pantomime that he wanted the tall guy in the seventh inning -- Ryan Madson -- even though there were two other guys warming up and Madson hadn't thrown a pitch.
It is hair-on-fire managing. Nobody -- and I mean nobody -- thought Manuel would go to Madson that early. What it meant, right then, was that Brad Lidge was going to be closing the game if there was a closing situation. Everybody knew it in their heart when Madson arrived on the mound. Sitting home on my couch, warm and comfortable, nearly 7 hours after finishing my column on the Eagles game -- 7 hours! -- it was all I could process. If this worked out, an entire season of drama and heartache for Lidge was going to play out in a couple of minutes with the clock already past 2 am. I know that's closing time, but I cannot imagine that anyody was thrown out of any bar in the city of Philadelphia as this morality play reached its final act. And I cannot imagine that any police officer cared.
Frego would not have used both Joe Blanton and J.A. Happ in Game 2. He probably would not have have used Blanton as early as Manuel did in Game 3, and he would not have used Madson -- the presumptive closer -- in the seventh. Actors and their roles, after all.
This isn't to knock Fregosi -- because he's a great baseball man. Most people manage the same way -- you keep people within their comfort zones and you manage the same as you have all season. And if the situation bites you, well, that's baseball.
Manuel, though, has decided to bite back.
The Eagles couldn't run the ball, couldn't get off the field for long stretches on defense, committed a bunch of costly penalties and still beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers today by the score of 33-14.
Which tells you just how bad the Bucs are.
This was as unwatchable a mid-season game as the Eagles have played in a very long time -- although, truth be told, next Sunday at Oakland might be even worse. The entire NFC East is neck-deep in the easy part of its schedule, just swimming in cake. That the Cowboys were tied late by Kansas City tells you plenty about them. That the Redskins are a mess is fairly obvious. But as for the Eagles and the Giants, it is really hard to know how good they are. They are both good, clearly, but how good? It will be weeks and weeks before we know for sure.
The Eagles highlight yesterday was Jeremy Maclin, starting in place of the injured Kevin Curtis, catching two long touchdown passes of 51 and 40 yards. He is the first Eagles rookie ever to have two 40-yard receiving touchdowns in the same game.
But it was just such a snooze.
What time do the Phillies start?
Maybe this is a repeat of Game 1. Maybe Cole Hamels pitches like Cliff Lee, going nine innings, or lots of innings, and saving Phils manager Charlie Manuel from the bullpen decisions upon which this entire National League Division Series was expected to pivot.
Maybe, maybe not. And you wonder what it meant that J.A. Happ and Ryan Madson were both throwing in the ninth inning of Game 1, with the Phils leading by 5-zip at the time.
There are theories. One is that Happ was just getting in his normal throwing between starts. The way that theory goes is, Happ was only going to be a bullpen option in Game 1, that Manuel really wants to start Happ in Game 3 on Saturday night in Denver, and that when he wasn't needed in the series opener, that was that.
Another theory is that Happ remains very much ready if the Phillies need him to get out a tough lefty late in the game -- at which point he would still be available to start Game 4 on Sunday. Manuel has done nothing to discourage talk either way -- he has spoken in perfect circles on the issue for days now.
I understand what Manuel is thinking here, creating this hybrid role for Happ. But now that he has Game 1 in his back pocket, I think he ought to get Happ out of the bullpen and get him ready to start Saturday night. To me, it is unlikely that Game 2 will be decided when Happ has the ball in his hand. The moment will come later, with Madson in the game, or Brad Lidge. The nightmare scenario would involve Happ pitching in Game 2 and the Phillies losing anyway -- and, depending upon the number of pitches he had to throw, wondering when he would be able to pitch next. You would have expended a key piece for nothing. Again, that's the nightmare.
I think you make this calculation, if Hamels can't carry you today: Lee in Game 1, Happ in Game 3, Lee in Game 5. You do that and you take your chances. You do that and maximize your chances, in my mind. Again, I understand the imperative of Game 1 in a five-game series, understand why you might want to use Happ to help win that opener. But now that that's done, I think this is your best shot.
And, of course, Hamels has a chance to make it all moot anyway.
UPDATED: At his pre-game press availability, Manuel would not be cornered on his Game 3 starter, saying he probably would announce it after the team's Friday workout in Denver. Asked if he imagined it would be Happ if he were not needed out of the bullpen in Game 2, Manuel laughed and said, "I don't imagine nothing. Seriously."
The forecasts were right.
The wind will be an issue.
It is blowing and blowing hard from leftfield to right field. Sitting here in the press box, the tallest flag pole in centerfield in Citizens Bank Park, the pole holding the American flag, is moving in the wind -- not the flag, the pole itself. The flag is wrapped around the pole, the wind having spun it and spun it and spun it again around its spindle.
None of the flags have shredded -- it isn't like that, not yet. But the forecast was for 40-plus mph gusts and you have to believe it. The flag of the city is starched in blue and yellow. The red 2008 championship flag has wrapped once around the pole so that only the 008 is showing. The smaller white flags, of division championships gone by, are waving and attentive. All of it out toward rightfield.
Any fly ball hit higher than Harry the K's restaurant in left field -- higher than that structure -- will officially be an adventure. Because the wind will catch it, will grab it, will alter its flight at the least and carry it to Camden at the worst.
We could be talking about this for years.
And 3 hours before the first pitch, the red flag in centerfield is down to 08 being visible. And it continues to howl.
On the morning of the Phillies' playoff opener, on the morning after the Flyers' thrilling overtime winner over the Ovechkins, in the days before the Eagles resume the cream-puff part of their schedule and welcome back quarterback Donovan McNabb, this news comes from The Sporting News:
We're No. 2.
(Pittsburgh is No. 1.)
To live here is to know and understand what it means to be seen as the second-best sports city in the United States. To have experienced the '90s and the early part of this decade, to have lived long enough to see the Phillies' parade in November, is to know automatically that something special is going on around here. It is to know that, in a long and sometimes tortured history of sports in town, that this really has become one of the real sweet spots in time.
It still doesn't match the late '70s-early '80s -- it isn't close yet, frankly -- but the signs are there. You can see what's going on. And as the Phillies begin another journey, well, you just know that it really is different around here.
With that, here is the release from The Sporting News:
Philadelphia, riding a world championship by the Phillies and deep playoff runs by the Eagles and Flyers, finished a close second in Sporting News’ annual Best Sports Cities rankings, falling just back of No. 1 Pittsburgh, which reclaimed its title of “City of Champions” with the Steelers and Penguins.
“The Phillies’ bringing home a World Series title was the story in Philly, but look at how close the Eagles came to making it an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl. And the Flyers had a great season, too,” said Sporting News Chief of Correspondents Bob Hille, who has coordinated the rankings since their expansion 13 years ago. “This is as close as the point totals at the top of our rankings have been in quite a while.”
This year’s Best Sports Cities list features almost 400 cities and towns in the U.S. and Canada, ranked by a system that assigns points to a variety of categories, including a city’s number of teams, their regular-season won-lost records, playoff berths, bowl appearances and tournament bids, championships, applicable power ratings, fan fervor, attendance and more.
Sporting News began its Best Sports City rankings in 1993. Past winners:
2008—Boston
2007—Detroit
2006—Chicago
2005—Boston
2004—Boston
2003—Anaheim/Los Angeles
2002—Boston
2001—New York
2000—St. Louis
1999—New York
1998—Detroit
1997—Denver
1995—Denver
1994—Cleveland
1993—Chicago
Note: There was no Best Sports City in 1996 as Sporting News expanded and refined the rating system.
Cliff Lee as the Game 1 starter makes perfect sense and is not a surprise (at least it isn't a surprise to avid readers of High Cheese). There really is no risk here. It keeps people on their regular turns and it keeps both Lee and Cole Hamels available for a potential Game 5 against the Rockies. It is no big deal.
The most important decisions will involve, a) the closer (and manager Charlie Manuel ain't telling) and, b) the way they use J.A. Happ in the first two games, if they use him at all. These are where Manuel will earn his money -- when or if to use Happ against a big lefty in a big spot out of the bullpen in the first two games, and then when to fit him into the starting rotation after that. These are the issues that will be ripe for second-guessing if the thing blows up. The Game 1 starter will be a footnote.
But this lefty thing has been a fixation for Manuel, with good reason. It is the only explanation for the final roster move: Antonio Bastardo, in.
When they called up Bastardo the other day, quiet glances were exchanged among the people paying attention. It wasn't a big deal, but, well, they weren't bringing him up just for the hell of it. Bastardo went on the disabled list in late June with a shoulder strain and the assumption was that his season was done. But when it became more and more clear that Scott Eyre -- despite having an elbow injury -- would be the only lefty in the bullpen, and when it became clear that the Phils were going to have to face lefty Todd Helton five times a game in the first round of the playoffs, suddenly the talk began about Happ's hybrid role. And then Bastardo showed up, quietly.
He pitched once, Saturday, with the champagne smell finally wearing off. He pitched one inning, threw 13 pitches, reached about 94 mph on the radar gun, walked one guy.
And, now, here he is.
"They've got some guys who have been really good left-hand bats off the bench," Manuel said, referring specifically to Jason Giambi and Seth Smith. "I think that any time we can put a lefty on them, I think that that might be the best way to go...It's always good to be able to put a lefthander on that lefthanded hitter if that's his weakness."
Giambi has arguably been better against lefties this year. But Smith hits 40 points less against lefties with less power, and Helton's power numbers are much, much lower against lefties. Against righties, he has 14 homers in 439 plate appearances. Against lefties, he has one homer in 206 plate appearances.
So, Bastardo.
And the wheels turn.
This is not a rant about the Phillies and Rockies getting screwed by MLB because its first two playoff games are in the afternoon. Hopefully, it's a little more subtle than that. This isn't about big-city bias. It is about baseball's misguided view of itself.
The fact is, nobody in the country watches Division Series baseball games during the afternoon outside of the fans of the teams involved. But baseball views itself as The National Pastime, and it sees that all NFL and NBA playoff games are televised live nationally, and it won't start the season a couple of days earlier or extend it a couple of days later, so we are left with rabid fans of participating teams unable to watch the games.
It's absurd. It is a schedule designed for sportswriters and shut-ins.
In 2007, the Phillies and Rockies got the same raw deal with two days games in Philadelphia to open their series. The first one drew 3.17 million viewers nationwide, the second 3.3 million viewers. I'm not a math major but if my ciphering is even close, somewhere between one-third and one-half of the people who watched those games were from Philadelphia and Colorado. Most everyone else who watched accidentally bumped into the game while looking for a rerun of "Cash Cab."
None of the other sports inconvenience its fans like this. There is no reason why baseball couldn't do regional telecasts on weekdays in the first round of the playoffs. The standard would be simple. There would be two time slots, 6 pm and 9 pm in the East. The slot that made the most sense for the home team would be the place the game would fall.
I guarantee you that the ratings would be higher. I guarantee you that the fans of the teams involved -- the people who really care; in many cases, the only people who care -- would be thrilled.
Who would be mad? The infinitesimal number of Americans without an allegiance to a team who like to watch games in the afternoon.
Why cater to them?
