It wasn’t long before that the Phillies were a team known for its thundering lineup, but Hamels’ development and the acquisitions of Halladay, Oswalt, and Lee had turned the Phils into a pitching-based team.
The hitters were fine with that.
“It’s good having the attention directed at them,” Rollins said. “We had it for a long time and now we have the right guys to get that attention and deserve it themselves.”
Placido Polanco checked in and wondered what it would be like to be an opposing hitter and have to face the Phillies pitching staff. His solution? Sick day!
“Oh, my neck hurts,” he said. “I’ve got the flu. That cheesesteak I just ate doesn’t feel too good on my stomach.”
Once the full squad arrived, Manager Charlie Manuel gave his annual team address. Veteran Manuel observers know the skipper tends to ramble a bit when he gets loosened up. “All my speeches are different,” he once said, “because I say different stuff.” Shy and reserved by nature, Halladay simply listened to Manuel’s speech in 2010. More comfortable in his second year with the club, the always-organized, always-methodical pitcher gave his manager some advice.
“Bring notes,” Halladay said.
Manuel took Halladay’s advice and stayed on point, telling the club that its success had not only made fans eager for more but it had left a target on the team’s back and other clubs would be taking aim. Be ready, be prepared, and believe, Manuel told his team. Assume nothing. Make it happen.
Rollins always holds a news conference early in camp, the State of the Jimmy, as the scribes call it. It’s usually held under palm trees at the picnic table behind the clubhouse and it’s a highly anticipated event because the outspoken shortstop usually says something spicy, be it bold prediction or a jab at the Mets. On February 19, 2011, a little more than four years after his “we’re the team to beat” comment, Rollins went big again, predicting 100-plus wins.
“But that requires being lucky enough to stay healthy and having everybody do their job on the mound, in the field, and in the batter’s box,” the 32-year-old shortstop said.
Rollins alluded to the great fear of all professional sports teams—injury. Nothing can scuttle a team’s hopes faster than too many trips to the MRI tube. Just three days after Rollins’ prediction of 100-plus victories, news flashed across the clubhouse television that St. Louis Cardinals’ right-hander Adam Wainwright had suffered a season-ending elbow injury. The news on Wainwright resonated with particular strength in the Phillies’ clubhouse because he ranks among the game’s elite arms, having finished second and third, respectively, in NL Cy Young voting the previous two seasons.
Wainwright’s injury was a reminder to all of the fragility of pitching, not that the Phillies really needed one. Just weeks earlier, Lee had tweaked a muscle under his left armpit during off-season workouts in Arkansas. The Phillies immediately told him to stop working out and he traveled to Philadelphia for an examination. It proved to be nothing major, but the team took it slow with its $120 million investment at the start of camp. A month later, Oswalt took a line drive behind the right ear in a game against Tampa Bay in Port Charlotte. Oswalt went down in a heap, clutching the back of his head as a sunburned crowd held its breath. Thank goodness Manny Ramirez didn’t get good wood on the ball. Oswalt might not have been laughing as he did the next day.
“I told Charlie I’m not supposed to be making road trips,” Oswalt said. “This is what happens when you make road trips.”
Other than Lee’s early ache and Oswalt’s late scare, the pitching staff accomplished its top goal in spring training. It stayed healthy. Everything else fell into place after that: the conditioning, the pitching, and the all-important bonding that turned five pitchers into The Rotation.
Every morning, the pitchers, sometimes a couple of them, sometimes all five, ate breakfast at the cool kids’ table at the north end of the clubhouse. Over yogurt and fruit, they laughed and joked, talked fishing and pitching, and occasionally peeked up to see the latest highlight on the flat-screen television on the wall. One day, they all turned into autograph-seeking fans when country music ace Kenny Chesney visited the clubhouse. Another day, with camera crew in tow, they played a round of golf with MLB Network analyst John Smoltz, whose own credentials on the mound helped him score access to the spring’s hottest story.
For six weeks, the pitchers worked out together in the weight room and sat in the dugout together during games. It was a perfect time to compare changeup grips, or simply get to know each other. Nearly every day, they walked off the field together, as a group, to the applause of picture-snapping fans dreaming about where this staff could lead this baseball team.
“A starting staff is a team inside a team, and when you’ve got five guys who like being around each other it makes it even easier,” Oswalt said. “We’ve got great guys on this staff. We mess around with each other all the time. If one guy’s got to pitch, he feels like he’s missing out what’s happening on the bench. It’s fun.”
Oswalt, 33, and Lee, 32, hit it off immediately, “a couple of rednecks,” from Mississippi and Arkansas, respectively, as Lee said. Before long, they were sneaking off after practice to a nearby fishing hole. Oswalt reeled in 40 largemouth bass one day.
“No way he’s going to beat me,” Oswalt said of Lee.
Oswalt and Lee actually began bonding years earlier, in Philadelphia of all places. On the same day in October 2003, both pitchers had injuries repaired by Philadelphia-based surgeon William Meyers. Oswalt, then with Houston, had a groin injury. Lee, then with Cleveland, had a hernia. The two pitchers didn’t know each other at the time.
“I remember a guy being in there with me, but we were pretty drugged up coming out of anesthesia,” Oswalt said. “I remember telling the doctor I felt good and walking out of the hospital. The other guy was going to walk out but he stood up and said, ‘Noooo, I’ll think I’ll stay here.’ ”
Eventually the anesthesia wore off and Lee left the hospital, in and out of Philadelphia so quickly that he didn’t get to take in any tourist attractions. That’s OK. When he rejoined the Phillies in spring training 2011, a red shirt emblazoned with the image of the Liberty Bell and the word BOOM hung in his locker. He wore it daily during spring training and it soon became the hottest-selling item back home.
Finally, after two weeks of bullpen workouts and friendly fire—pitchers throwing to teammates in batting practice—the first Grapefruit League game arrived on February 26 against the Yankees in Tampa. It would have been great theater had it been Lee’s day to pitch. After all, he was the guy who did what few ever do: he turned down the Yankees, and bitterness over his decision stretched all the way to the press box.
“What day does Mrs. Lee pitch?” asked one New York wag, a clear reference to Kristen Lee’s desire to have her husband work in Philadelphia and not New York.
Hamels got the ball in that first game and impressed with two strong innings in a 5-4 win. Seven years earlier, as a 20-year-old in big-league camp for the first time, he dazzled the Yankees with his vaunted changeup. Back then he was a string bean. Now, he had muscles and sturdy shoulders under that uniform and he featured a fastball that popped at 94 mph.
“I finally hit two-hundred pounds this winter,” Hamels said. “I’ve been chasing it since I was eighteen. I really think the extra strength will prevent me from wearing down this season.”
Larry Shenk started working for the Phillies in 1963, rising from publicity director to vice president of public relations. Shenk tells stories of driving over to Clearwater Beach in the early 1970s, back when spring training was still a mom-and-pop operation at Jack Russell Stadium, and giving away tickets to games to spring-breakers. Now, there’s no need to give away tickets to get fans to come to games. Spring training is big business, especially in Clearwater, where the top ticket is $30 and Bright House Field is packed for just about every game. In recent years, spring training has become a destination for winter-weary Philadelphians eage
r for a little sun on their noses and a peek at their baseball team. In March, flights from Philadelphia to Tampa are packed with fans wearing red Phillies gear. A quick stop at the rental car counter and they’re off to Bright House Field, where they sit around the festive tiki bar and pound $6 Yuenglings while arguing which member of The Rotation will be the first to 20 wins.
In the spring of 2011, no Phillie was more embraced than Lee. Fans fell in love with his scruffy, blue collar, no-nonsense approach to pitching in 2009—he went 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA in five postseason starts that October—and their love for him grew deeper when he turned down the Yankees to be a Phillie again.
After more than two weeks of side sessions, Lee finally pitched in a Grapefruit League game on March 1 against the Tigers. The cheers were huge as he took the mound and the usually unflappable pitcher seemed a little unnerved by the excitement. Lee pitched 212⅓ innings in 2010, hit just one batter, and walked just 18. But in his 2011 spring debut, he hit the first batter he faced. In two innings, he allowed a walk and two runs while striking out three.
“He’s still getting his spikes broken in,” said Dubee, explaining Lee’s shaky debut. “Guys get a little juiced up in their first start and their deliveries are off.”
Of course, Halladay never gets too juiced up. His spring debuts in 2010 and 2011 were as eagerly awaited and wildly received as Lee’s and he sailed through both without giving up a run.
Lee couldn’t help but notice the electricity in the crowd as he warmed up in the bullpen before his spring debut.
“It’s nice to know the fans are excited about me being back,” he said. “They have reason to be excited. We have a good squad.”
The crowds kept coming to Bright House Field and The Rotation continued to inch toward being ready for Opening Day. For the second-straight year, Halladay would get that start. With each passing day, his focus on the April 1 season opener against Houston grew sharper. He started watching video of Astros hitters and formulating a game plan 10 days before Opening Day. From his first start of the spring, Halladay looked ready to win and four weeks of Grapefruit League games had brought his competitive juices to a boil. By the time he made his final spring start, a three-inning test drive on March 27, he was ready to burn someone. That someone turned out to be Art Thigpen.
Thigpen was the home plate umpire for Halladay’s final spring start against the Braves at Disney’s Wide World of Sports. With two outs in the third inning, Halladay thought he’d thrown a cutter for a strike to Nate McLouth. Thigpen called it a ball. Halladay’s blue eyes turned to daggers as he stared in at Thigpen. Halladay then threw a sinker that he liked. Thigpen called it a ball. The daggers turned icy hot. Halladay composed himself and got McLouth to ground out to shortstop on the next pitch. Deep down inside, Halladay wanted to shoot one more look at Thigpen, but that isn’t his style. He kept his focus, trained his eyes forward and walked off the field, ready for the regular season after a spring that saw him go 4-0 with a 0.42 ERA in five starts. In 24⅔ innings of Grapefruit League action, he allowed just 16 hits and one run while striking out 19 and walking six. With Halladay, there’s no “I’m just getting my work in.” He’s always there to dominate and he did it, with arm and attitude, in the spring of 2011, right down to his last pitch.
After the game, Halladay ran sprints under the searing Florida sun. His face was red and he was drenched with sweat as he met with reporters 50 minutes after staring down the umpire in a game that didn’t even count.
“Jeez, you want to compete,” Halladay said. “As a pitcher, we want all the pitches we throw to be strikes.”
The countdown to Opening Day had begun in Halladay’s mind.
“You put in a lot of work over the winter and in spring training,” he said. “To be able to actually put it to use is kind of a relief.”
The final week of spring training means different things for different people. Veteran players comfortably pack their bags for the trip north. Fringe players walk an emotional fault line, not knowing if they are headed to Philadelphia or the minor leagues. Management frets over the final roster decisions.
Spring training 2011 was not the smoothest the Phillies have ever had. Everyone got a vocabulary lesson when Chase Utley was diagnosed with chondromalacia and tendinitis in his right knee. The team’s quiet leader didn’t play an inning in Florida. Closer Brad Lidge checked into camp feeling healthy and checked out with a tear in his shoulder. Hotshot prospect Domonic Brown slumped badly and then broke his hand. Veteran Luis Castillo came in for a late look at second base but failed to make the club because, well, it already had enough brittle thirtysomethings.
But through it all, The Rotation stayed healthy and the possibilities excited even the hardest of baseball men.
“When I look at the Phillies rotation from a distance I am in awe of what they could possibly accomplish,” said Hall of Fame pitcher Don Sutton, a Braves broadcaster. “I know the book isn’t written yet, all we have is an outline, and I don’t think we’ll be able to evaluate until we look back on it. But looking forward to it, I think it should be the envy of every major-league ball club. If you don’t want those four guys running out there for you, there’s something wrong with you.
“It has the potential to be the best rotation in all of baseball and one of the best in history.”
APRIL
Roy Halladay sat in front of his locker and spoke to a small and attentive audience in a corner of the Phillies’ clubhouse.
He wore a red hooded Phillies sweatshirt, blue Phillies gym shorts, and red sneakers. Several sheets of paper, each one showing different hitters and how he planned to attack them, rested on his lap. Pitching Coach Rich Dubee sat to his right, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. Catcher Carlos Ruiz sat across from him, hunched over, hanging on every word as if his life depended on it. It was 10 A.M. on April 1, nearly three hours before Halladay would throw his first pitch on Opening Day of the most highly anticipated season in franchise history, and he was running the show.
Pitchers, catchers, and pitching coaches talk strategy before every game. They discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing hitters and the pitch sequences and locations they plan to use. It’s an exchange of ideas. The pitcher offers his opinions. The pitching coach and catcher offer theirs. But when Halladay pitches, he does the talking. He keeps detailed notes on every hitter he has faced and has studied video of every hitter he has a chance to face in that day’s game.
Halladay started studying film of the Houston Astros, the Phillies’ opponent that Friday afternoon in front of a sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park, more than a week earlier.
He knew exactly what he wanted to do.
The meeting lasted about 15 minutes. Dubee and Ruiz, who barely uttered a word, stood up and quietly walked away. Halladay turned toward his locker, picked up his iPod, put an ear bud into each ear, and switched on the device. Teammates leave Halladay alone the days he pitches. He gets 33 or so chances a season to help his team win and he treats each opportunity like it’s his last. Teammates know better than to puncture the ace’s meditative balloon.
A buzz filled the clubhouse on this snowy, Opening Day morning. (Yes, players drove through a snow flurry on their way to the park.) In the corner opposite Halladay, Michael Martinez, a career minor-league infielder who finally made the big leagues at age 28, beamed in front of his locker. The Phillies selected him in the Rule 5 Draft in December and, thanks in part to an injury to Chase Utley, he earned a spot on the roster. Martinez put on his uniform and smiled. The lowest-paid player on the roster—which boasts seven players making more than $10 million per season—Martinez would make the league minimum $414,000, but the money was life-changing and would help his family in the Dominican Republic.
“Back in the Dominican, we are from the ’hood,” said fellow countryman and Third-Base Coach Juan Samuel as the clubhouse buzzed with activity before the season opener.
J. C. Romero strutted through the clubhouse, whi
stling the tune playing on his iPod. Brad Lidge reached into his locker and checked his cell phone before retreating to a back room. Lidge would open the season on the disabled list with a tear in his rotator cuff. Ordinarily, the smart and affable veteran reliever might be giving a rundown on the season’s goals to reporters before the season opener. But on this day, Lidge goes about his business unbothered. Players are seemingly invisible when they are on the disabled list, even former World Series heroes.
Relief pitchers Danys Baez, Jose Contreras, and Antonio Bastardo sat in chairs, conversing in Spanish a few feet away from Martinez. Baez and Contreras are best friends who share a bond as Cuban defectors. An impressive young talent—but one who had trouble staying healthy, pitching consistently, and showing maturity in previous seasons—Bastardo served as the heir apparent to Romero, the team’s top left-handed relief pitcher. But Dubee and Manager Charlie Manuel made a point in spring training to say he had proven nothing yet. The coaching staff knows players read media reports about themselves, no matter how much they insist publicly they do not. Even if they don’t read the stories, a family member or friend does. And if something negative is written about him, the player will hear about it within minutes.
Dude, they’re killing you in the paper!
In the case of Bastardo, the Phillies didn’t want him to just think he is good. They wanted him to prove it.
Jimmy Rollins ambled through the clubhouse, wearing a full-length white robe with red pinstripes and his last name and No. 11 on the back. The robe drew a few chuckles from onlookers and Rollins responded by flashing his toothy grin. Nobody else had a robe like this, but nobody else would have a robe like this. The most confident and stylish player in the Phillies’ clubhouse, Rollins pulled it off.
A few feet from him, clubhouse attendant Sean Bowers handed Roy Oswalt different-sized caps to try on until he finally found one he liked.
The Rotation Page 15
