Like many folks, Dubee had his suspicions
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Like many folks, Dubee had his suspicions
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
The two scouts who Ken Rosenthal quoted in his spring training story about Roy Halladay's decreased velocity are not the only people who had some suspicions about the veteran righthander's physical well-being.
"I've thought since spring training that there was an issue," pitching coach Rich Dubee said on Tuesday, after the Phillies put Halladay on the disabled list with a Grade 1/2 strain of his lat muscle. "The ball just hasn't been accelerating through the zone the way his stuff does. His cutter has been moving that way, but his stuff is different than most people's stuff. Does he have that 96 (MPH velocity)? No. But his stuff, from the grass through the hitting zone, is explosive. It just took off. It was just more gradual now. It didn't have the finish to it."
So why did Halladay continue to pitch? According to Dubee, it was only the last couple of outings when it became apparent that the veteran righthander was not going to be able to pitch through whatever was ailing him. Heck, according to Halladay, there wasn't even a problem until the past couple starts.
Probably for a couple weeks now he's talked about crankiness, but he's said it's nothing I can't pitch with. After a couple of outings I talked to him, and then last outing, just watching his body language you could tell it wasn't even close to being right. So we got him out of there and hopefully we caught this thing at a good time if there is a good time and we can get it strengthened and get him on the mound again.
"Guys generally pitch with something," Dubee said. "You do not feel 100 percent very often when you go out there. There are lingering things and I thought this was some type of thing that was just a minor, lingering thing and we talked and he said he felt he could deal with it and work through it, and it just never got better and finally we had to stop it and see what was going on.
"Guys pitch with crankiness. Guys pitch with all kinds of crankiness. There is wear and tear to pitching. This went from just a crankiness and not feeling right to all of a sudden the last couple outings it was a little more difficult. The difference was really that he could get heated up, but when he sat down, he couldn't get it going again, he couldn't get the arm speed going again and the velocity and his arm in the right slot, and that just happened in the last couple of outings.
"We always talk. Probably for a couple weeks now he's talked about crankiness, but he's said it's nothing I can't pitch with. After a couple of outings I talked to him, and then last outing, just watching his body language you could tell it wasn't even close to being right. So we got him out of there and hopefully we caught this thing at a good time if there is a good time and we can get it strengthened and get him on the mound again."
Nobody is quite sure when the injury happened. Dubee pointed out that Halladay shouldered a tremendous workload in his final outing of the 2011 season, throwing 126 pitches in eight innings while trying to maintain a 1-0 deficit against the Cardinals.
"I haven't seen the stuff you expect to see out of him really since spring training, so you wonder," Dubee said. "You wonder what happened. We leave the season last year, he pitches a whale of a game the last day, was it happening then, did it happen when he started long tossing? You really don't know when it happened. Does it happen over wear and tear? There's a lot of things you could throw into the equation. But it is what it is and hopefully we caught it at a good enough time where three weeks of rest and reshaping his lat and strengthening it again we can get him back on the mound."
The news is better than it could have been.
"It could have been the labrum, it could have been the rotator cuff," Dubee said. "If there is good news from an injury, this is probably good news."
Can I suggest that everyone take a second to use the "report abuse" button when necessary? Note that a boy named "dogbiscuitdope" is posting one abusive and inappropriate post after another, calling fellow posters "stupid" and "dope," etc. There is no place for such name calling on what is supposed to be a civil disucssion board. I have hit the "report abuse" button whenever he posts something like this, and I think that if enough of us also report the abuse, the moderators will soon get the clue and ban this person from the discussion board. It's certainly worth a shot. So please take the second and report this poster and others like him whenever you see these types of posts.— Jamesallen- "There's a lot of things you could throw into the equation."
Including Cholly killing his starting pitchers.— VicM - Yes, VicM, like when he let Halladay faced 9 batters in the 5th inning in Atlanta, when everybody with a little knowledge of baseball knew something has been wrong with the ace since spring training. He pitched with the bases loaded to 3 different hitters culminating in McCann GS. Then Cholly added insult to injury by sending him back there and his struggles continued. Mercifully, after LH pinch hitter Jason Heyward single in two go ahead runs, he replaced the exhausted Halladay with lefty Joe Savery. Think about it: Atlanta had 2 LH hitters lineup and he left the struggling Roy pitch to Heyward. Of the last 13 hitters he faced, he allowed 9 hits, good for 8 runs. That is stuff that managers do to mop up men. Not to the Ace of the staff. The koolaid drinkers and writers/apologist kept saying he didn't trust the bullpen. This is complete misjudging and mismanaging. Dubee's admissions has to be taken seriously by ownership. I know I would.— EL Zorro
- This is all Charlie Manual's fault!! Letting Halladay hit in the 7th or 8th with more than a 4 run lead too many times & running him out there already at or near 100 pitches. This injury didn't happenn this week, it happened as soon as Charlie got a hold of his career!— FetchDixon
- Why didn't Dubee sound the alarm sooner? Why didn't he inform Amaro that something was wrong and get a face-to-face meeting with Roy and ask the obvious question...."what's wrong". Or is that too insulting? Where does his responsibilty begin and end? I think any responsible pitching coach, e.g., Joe Kerrigan, would not have waited while a "cranky" shoulder became a 6-8 week shutdown. Let's assume it worse case 8 weeks. That's 56 days or 11 starts for Halladay. Using his normal efficiency he wins 7 of those starts. Who is going to step in and do the job? Dubee may have lost us the chance at the division by his inaction.— 1republican
- A coach is highly dependent on a player's input when deciding what steps to take. And there's no way to know if an MRI would have found anything conclusive in the earliest stages of discomfort. When you have a veteran pitcher of Halladay's caliber, you value his input even moreso. To me, it sounds like Roy's crazy competitive nature cost him in this situation.
I wasn't a fan of Dubee, but I've slowly come around on him. I too think he would be snapped up if we were to fire him.— phils_tnj1 - If Dubee had a hunch we should not be where we are.— oldBird
- Mark - as usual, "spot on," as the Brits say. May I add it IS troubling to read there were several scouts (even a reporter!) who saw the radical change in Doc's pitches, but Mr. Dubee didn't see the same things - at least he didn't think they were severe enough to recommend shutting him down. I realize that hindsight is nearly always 20/20, but taking into account what is at stake here, erring on the side of caution would seem to be appropriate. Open for debate is whether it would have lessened the severity of the injury.— dwp66
- warb - get your money back from whomever taught you grammar, spelling, - hell, why you're at it, how about the Doctors who delivered you?— dwp66
