Bob Ford: Phillies played the shame game

By Bob Ford

Inquirer Sports Columnist

It isn't the sort of quote that will join the litany of misplaced words in the sporting history of this town. It won't rank up there with Terry Murray calling his Flyers a bunch of chokers, or Ricky Watters asking for the identity of the beneficiary had he extended himself to catch a difficult pass, or, certainly, with Allen Iverson reminding his audience that no one pays $100 a seat to watch rehearsal.

In this frustrating Phillies season, however, it is all we have.

We have only what team president Dave Montgomery said, long before the trade deadline, long before this race in the National League East became such a mud-wrestling contest between two drunken bears.

"Shame on us if we sit back and say, 'Everything is fine.' "

There is more to the quote, which Montgomery gave to the Daily News in a friendly sit-down before the all-star break, but that is the heart of it. The Phillies are a good team, maybe just a deep drive from great, and shame on the organization if it doesn't do what it takes to make that jump. The team is that close.

Well, here we are with 140 games gone, 22 to go, and there's nothing else to say but this: Shame on you guys.

Regardless of how the race in the division turns out - and the Phillies may yet pin the Mets in the muddy trough - the organization let down its players and fans by not doing enough to solidify the roster.

Forty-five of the 68 home dates on the schedule so far have been sellouts, already a franchise record. The support and the income have been there. And what have the fans received in return as they waited for the mortar that would fill the cracks in the roster? No offense to the players, because they are doing the best they can, but what the fans got was Joe Blanton, Scott Eyre and Matt Stairs.

Perhaps that isn't the front-office equivalent of sitting back and saying everything is fine, but it isn't far from it.

Should the Phillies get past the Mets - and starting the process tonight wouldn't be the worst idea - they probably aren't good enough to go very far in the playoffs. Just surviving a first-round series against the wild-card Milwaukee Brewers is unlikely. The Brewers, of course, have nothing to be ashamed of. They didn't sit back. They needed a real starting pitcher and made it happen. CC Sabathia is 9-0 with a 1.43 earned run average since his trade to Milwaukee.

Is it that simple? Not entirely, but the difference between Sabathia and Blanton might turn out to be the difference in the NL playoffs.

The puzzling part is that everyone assumed this would be the season of no holding back for lame-duck general manager Pat Gillick. Who wouldn't want the last lap to be a victory lap before he and his cabana clothes sailed off into the rayon sunset?

Gillick might have been expected to mortgage some future to make this a memorable farewell, and we were advised to hold onto our hats. Now it is past Labor Day, and our hats are still firmly in place and the tenuous nature of this ball club is still intact as well.

It isn't as if Gillick minds the prospect of leaving the cupboard bare as a necessity sometimes. Toronto won 95 games in 1993 under Gillick's stewardship, and he was out of there the next year. It took the Blue Jays until 1998 to have another winning season. Baltimore won 98 games in 1997. Gillick left the next year, and the Orioles haven't had a winning season since. The Mariners won, in succession, 91, 116, 93 and 93 games under Gillick before he decamped for Philadelphia. One winning season since in Seattle.

The Phillies have been steady under Gillick, winning 85 and 89 games in the last two seasons. In all likelihood, they will middle those numbers this year. Here's the question, as the general manager purportedly prepares to retire: What happened to our 95-win season?

It's a reasonable question. The answer, in part, is that the front office overrated the lineup coming out of spring training. There wasn't a replacement for Aaron Rowand's 89 RBIs or the ability to compensate for Jimmy Rollins' dip in power production. Once Pat Burrell cooled after an unusually hot start - he's hit .227 since June 16 - the offense did the same. The team is 35-36 since that same week.

The thin starting pitching was bolstered by an unbelievable stretch of competence from the bullpen, but that appears to be reaching its expiration date, too. And now the team is forced to skip Kyle Kendrick in the rotation and pitch the fragile and indispensable Cole Hamels out of turn. Two words: Uh oh.

A chance in time is an awful thing to waste. That appears to be where we are heading, though.

Three more words: Shame on them.

Contact columnist Bob Ford

at 215-854-5842 or bford@phillynews.com.

Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/bobford.

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