Girardi reflects on the 1998 Yankees, a club with many parallels to the current Phillies team originally appeared in NBC Sports Philadelphia
Damn. That was a complete beating the Yankees gave their Fightin’ Phillies on Monday night in the old yard.
All-Star starter Zack Wheeler gave up seven runs. That’s the most he’s allowed in a game since, well, last month. The lineup, filled with All-Stars and superstars, was muzzled again. The 14-4 defeat witnessed by another sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park was their eighth defeat in 12 games.
Is it too late to sell before Tuesday’s 6pm trading deadline? Clearly it’s time to pull the plug.
Note to the deaf: Yes, this is sarcasm. Baseball history is littered with the ghosts of teams that squandered big leads and everyone remembers the epic collapses. But not every leader who encounters a difficult path also falls by the wayside.
In honor of New York’s classic gray uniforms, let’s go back to 1998. The Yankees were a powerhouse. They won 114 games, easily dispatched the Indians in the ALCS and beat the Padres in the World Series.
They did this despite going 10-14 from late August to mid-September. Despite losing five of eight in mid-July. Despite losing 6 of 10 at one point in June.
There’s no hiding that the Phillies aren’t playing well. Wheeler’s performance, plus the fact that he felt tightness in his lower back before the All-Star break, should be a concern. (For the record, he said his back is fine.) The fact that Ranger Suarez is on the injured list should be a concern. An offense that makes noise, squeaks and leaks oil like a 20 year old car with 300,000 miles on the odometer should be a concern.
All of this is certainly making the fan base slowly boil. There will be demands on sports radio and in neighborhood taprooms for something – anything! – being done.
Pssst. Want to know a secret? There’s really nothing coach Rob Thomson can do other than keep drawing up the lineup card and hope his players live up to their reputations and their contracts. Do you want him to give a postgame speech or flip the spread postgame? This was 1980, and what’s more, it would almost certainly boomerang with the current generation of gamers. Do you want changes to the wholesale schedule? Really? For whom, for what?
Joe Girardi watched Monday night’s carnage from the vantage point of the Yankees’ television booth. In 1998, he was the Yankees’ backup catcher. This team, he said, never panicked.
“We didn’t do that,” he said after the final. “We didn’t play well in September, but we had such a big lead that we rested some people and got ready for the playoffs.
“But it’s difficult when you have such a big lead for so long – no matter how much you try to get the same adrenaline rush – people get stuck and your lineup isn’t the same every day. You just need to be professional.”
Girardi went on to manage the Marlins, Yankees and Phillies and recalled that Joe Torre did not overreact no matter what happened. “He trusted us,” Girardi said. “We knew. We had won before. We knew what it took. We had a bad taste in our mouth after losing to Cleveland in 1997 and we kind of carried that through the year.
Likewise, as ugly as their play has been recently, the Phillies still have the best record in baseball and an 8 1/2 game lead over second-place Atlanta in the NL East. Not to mention, his off-season mantra was to be motivated to avenge the disappointment of being eliminated from the playoffs by Arizona in the NLCS last October, a goal that remains unrequited.
They have to play better, of course. They achieved nothing. At the same time, drastic measures (such as offering Bunning and Short two days off) are hardly the answer.
Asked what he can do in these circumstances, Thomson said: “Just support them and remind them of who they are. We are a very talented club that is going through a difficult time. I truly believe we will get out of this. Because we are too talented not to. We just have to keep fighting and working and doing the things we did at the beginning of the season.
That’s not what anyone wants to hear. But it’s the only approach that makes sense at the moment.
“We put ourselves in a good position (with a quick start to the season) and we’re doing really well right now,” Wheeler said. “We’re going to figure it out and start playing better across the board. We are a very good team, but we can’t always be good. You go through these stretches throughout the season. We don’t like that. Our fans don’t like that. Nobody likes that. But it’s part of the game.”
Testifying for the hitters, designated hitter Kyle Schwarber delivered a similar sermon.
“Sucks. There is no doubt about it,” he said. “I know everyone here is doing everything they can to get back on the right path, right? A lot of it is baseball. This is a cliché, but it also depends on us. Let’s keep working and doing what we need to do. Go out there and play our brand of baseball and turn it around.
“Let’s go play the game the right way and see what happens.”
Once again, the Phillies have yet to win anything. But it’s worth taking a deep breath and remembering that they haven’t lost anything yet either.
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