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As Phillies go through process of their own, no time to panic | David Murphy

The win over the Rockies offered both highlights and lowlights.

THE WORST THING to do is panic. That goes for pretty much any situation in life, whether you're trying to swim in the deep end, break out of a skid on an icy road or order off an unfamiliar menu. The Phillies have at times looked like the baseball equivalent of all of the above, or even some combination of them, a drowning man doing doughnuts while the waitress taps her pencil. Odubel Herrera looked something like that while trying to make contact on a 3-2 slider in the eighth inning on Thursday afternoon. He looked something like that in most of his at-bats, all of which ended in the same fashion. The last time the Phillies had a hitter go 0-for-5 with five strikeouts, they won a World Series two months later. That does not seem like a likely outcome this time around.

Yet it holds true: The last thing any Phillies fan should be hoping for right now is a dramatic reorientation of organizational philosophy. In that sense, Thursday's 2-1 11th-inning victory over the Rockies was probably more important than one of 162. Nobody is immune from the allure of change for the sake of change, and if you happened to be a billionaire baseball owner with pride in his product and a desire to win, there were several moments that might've felt like the last straw, had Tommy Joseph's late-game heroics not diminished their sting.

The first was the 0-2 fastball Vince Velasquez threw to Trevor Story in the fourth inning, which Story blasted for a solo home run that gave the Rockies a 1-0 lead. At first glance, the pitch seemed maddeningly counterintuitive. In Story's previous at bat, Velasquez got ahead of him 1-2, then threw five straight fastballs, the last of which sat middle in and would've ended up in a deep fryer on the concourse had the Rockies outfielder not swung a millimeter beneath bull's-eye and skied a towering fly out to shallow leftfield. This time around, Velasquez threw the same pitch, with roughly the same execution, and with three balls to spare. Story didn't miss.

Once Velasquez explained his decision-making process after the game, the pitch selection made a bit more sense. He'd entered the afternoon determined to stick to a simple game plan, putting faith in his fastball and avoiding the panicky overthinking he thought had plagued him in previous outings. He'd started Story off with a fastball, then spotted a slider for a strike, and now seemed like a perfect time to run a fastball upstairs and try to get him to chase. The sequence of thoughts was logical. It's the execution that was lacking.

Come to think of it, that's a fitting reminder that there is often a chicken-and-egg element to things we like to chalk up to mental struggles. It's a lot easier to avoid second-guessing oneself when one is consistently putting his fastball where he intends it to go. There's a chance that consistent command of his 93- to 95-mph fastball is the only psychologist Velasquez needs.

That command wasn't there against the Rockies. The results were better - seven strikeouts, one walk, one run - but Velasquez still left the bullpen with four innings to kill, plus two more in extras after Joseph tied the game at 1-1 with a home run in the seventh. There aren't many situations in which a manager will pull a pitcher from the game at 94 pitches after having let him bat in the previous half inning, but that's what Mackanin did with Velasquez before the sixth, and it was difficult to argue with his thinking.

Heading into the afternoon, Velasquez had allowed 14 runs in 171/3 innings over his last three starts. The only other start in which he'd allowed fewer than three runs was May 1 in Chicago, and it took him 98 pitches to complete five innings that day. Progress is measured in inches sometimes.

"He looked like he took a step forward," Mackanin said. "He showed improvement, and we wanted to get his psyche in the right spot."

Before pulling Velasquez, Mackanin kept him in the game to bunt in the fifth with nobody out and runners on first and second. It was the right move, given that the Phillies were down a bench player and would have been bunting regardless. But process and outcomes are two different things, and when Velasquez popped out, it seemed as if the nadir of the Phillies season had dropped even lower.

Thanks to the latest episode in Joseph's resurgence, plus a diving catch and throw out by reliever Pat Neshek, the Phillies ended up pulling out of their 3-20 dive.

In all likelihood, there will be plenty more moments that encourage a break from the moderation with which the Phillies have steadfastly guided their process. Roman Quinn, Rhys Hoskins, J.P. Crawford, Jorge Alfaro, Nick Williams . . . somebody, anybody - hell, it can't possibly get worse, right?

That's the thing, though, see: It can. Until all of us are dust and the cockroaches rule the Earth, it can most definitely get worse. The key is to avoid compounding the pain.

Take Joseph, for example. On Thursday, the 25-year-old slugger was standing in front of his locker with his steely square-jawed countenance, fielding questions about the improbable journey he'd taken to moments like this. A few weeks ago, he was listening to people wonder whether it was time to make a change at first base. Turns out, his early-season funk ended in mid-April; since then, he's hit seven home runs with an OPS pushing .900. Thursday's blast was his 28th in 499 career plate appearances. He's a long way from having proved anything, but the Phillies are still at a point at which they need to give him - and the rest of the roster - every opportunity to do so. This is a fact-finding stage. Not all facts are pretty, or comfortable, or convenient. But all are necessary.

Baseball is a game of wait and see. Sometimes, the seeing is as painful as the waiting. The Astros won 76 games in 2010, 56 in 2011, 55 in 2012, 51 in 2013. Two years later, they were in the playoffs. As the athletes say, it is what it is. At least Thursday was a win.

dmurphy@phillynews.com

@ByDavidMurphy