The Rotation

by Jim Salisbury

  Oswalt followed Lee in the rotation throughout the month, providing a contrast of results. Oswalt allowed eight hits and four runs in six innings in a 6-2 loss to the Dodgers on June 7. His velocity showed no improvement, and this time he couldn’t fake it. The Dodgers got him, giving the Phillies their sixth loss in nine games. The Phillies might have Halladay, Lee, Oswalt, and Cole Hamels in The Rotation, but they had just lost to pitchers Jonathon Niese, Jason Marquis, John Lannan, Charlie Morton, and Rubby De La Rosa.

  Damn.

  Manuel spoke after the game about Oswalt’s struggles, which were becoming more of a concern.

  “How do I explain it?” he said. “Basically, he’s not as sharp as he was.When we got him last year . . . he was very aggressive. He pounded the strike zone.”

  Oswalt’s back screamed with every pitch. And now the pain had started to shoot down his leg. Reporters asked him why he was allowing so many more base runners and why he wasn’t striking anybody out. After allowing just 8.58 base runners per nine innings from his first start with the Phillies in July 2010 through April 15, 2011, he was averaging a whopping 14.90 base runners per nine innings. After averaging 7.8 strikeouts per nine innings from his arrival in Philadelphia through April 15, he was averaging a pedestrian 3.7.

  “I look for wins,” Oswalt said. “I don’t really look for nothing else. Strikeouts are nice if you get ’em, but if you get wins, that’s what you shoot for.”

  The grilling of Oswalt had begun and the pitcher began to bristle at questions. A reporter followed by asking if a lack of sharpness was contributing to the increase in base runners.

  “The reason for what?” Oswalt responded.

  For all the extra base runners, the reporter repeated. Oswalt is as mild-mannered as they come, but after a couple weeks of being asked about his vanishing fastball and all those base runners, he had started to lose patience. He said he got caught up trying to throw too hard, “listening to you guys, trying to strike guys out and trying to throw a little harder than I needed to.”

  Oswalt got another follow-up question mentioning Manuel’s comments about how aggressive he was last season and if he felt he was close to being that pitcher again.

  “Um,” Oswalt said.

  He paused.

  “I mean, I’m just trying to win.”

  He chuckled dismissively. He was being asked why he sucked and when he thought he would stop sucking, and he knew it.

  “What the other guys do, I don’t try to pitch like them,” he said. “I try to pitch like myself. I’ve done it for thee hundred or four hundred starts. There’s a big difference between pitching and throwing, and sometimes you get caught up in throwing, trying to get strikeouts and trying to do something you don’t need to do. If I can get through six, seven, eight innings, and only strike out one or two and we win, that’s all I’m looking for. I ain’t looking to pad my numbers.That has nothing to do with it. I’m just looking to win ball games.”

  Oswalt got another follow-up, trying to clarify the previous question.

  Roy, this isn’t about you pitching like your peers. It’s about dominating like last season.

  “It ain’t as easy as it looks,” he said, clearly annoyed. “I think I’ve thrown four games since I’ve been back. The other three games, there wasn’t much said about it, but I’ve felt like I’ve put the team in position to win a lot of those games. We just didn’t win them.”

  Oswalt was frustrated. He wanted to scream, “My back is killing me! You guys don’t understand ! I thought I wiggled through the game pretty well for not being healthy.” But he didn’t want anybody to know, so he kept quiet and kept his cool with reporters.

  That’s not always easy.

  Veteran baseball writers love to tell stories about how they used to grab a beer in the hotel bar with players, coaches, managers, and general managers. There was plenty of trust between the two sides. Stories were swapped as tongues got to wagging.

  Times have changed. The world has changed. The 24-hour news cycle has made players and club officials a little more guarded around reporters. A player really has to trust a reporter before he opens up to him or her. That guardedness extends to his life in the community, where a player steps out for a night out on the town with the realization that he could be on YouTube in an hour. Some players have talked about entering an empty restaurant, bar, or club, and the place suddenly filling up because somebody tweeted their location. OMG, CHASE UTLEY IS AT MORIMOTO’S!!

  In the Internet age, everything has become a big deal. On-field mistakes are analyzed and criticized ad nauseum, and innocent off-field events are blown out of proportion. Ryan Howard sprained his ankle in 2010 and took his son to Dorney Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on an off day. A fan snapped a photo, emailed it to the Philadelphia sports blog Crossing Broad, and suddenly Howard was being ripped for the sin of... taking his son to an amusement park! It didn’t matter that the ankle was immobilized and in no danger of being aggravated.

  In some cases, reporter-player relationships have suffered because of this changing world. Don’t misunderstand—solid working relationships can be forged between reporters and the people they cover. It’s just tougher than it used to be.

  Regardless of the era, there are always times when the best of relationships can get a little offtrack, as first-year Philadelphia Inquirer beat writer Todd Zolecki learned in June 2003. The Phillies had won 10 of 12 games that month when Zolecki wrote about a possible reason for why they were playing so well: citing an anonymous source, Zolecki reported the front office had sought the opinions of players following a tough road trip and one player told the front office it would help if Manager Larry Bowa was more positive in the dugout. The story was accurate, but the timing did not sit well with Phillies Third-Base Coach John Vukovich, who grew up with Bowa near Sacramento, California. The two were like brothers, and Vuke was fiercely protective of Bowa—not only because they were close friends, but also because Vuke, who was widely admired and respected in the organization, was old-school, and old-school coaches always protected their managers.

  The next afternoon at Veterans Stadium, Vukovich confronted Zolecki in the middle of the clubhouse before batting practice.

  “Oh, big man with your anonymous source,” Vukovich bellowed. “Big fucking man. If you’re a real man, you’d name your source. Name your goddamn source!”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Zolecki said.

  Vukovich started screaming, inching closer and closer to Zolecki’s face. Players, reporters, and coaches stopped to watch. Bowa listened intently from his office.

  “Name your goddamn source,” Vukovich demanded.

  Zolecki had been on the beat for only a couple months and had never been reamed out like this, not even as a kid.

  “Uh, I . . .” he stammered.

  “You know why you won’t name your source?” Vukovich said, moving even closer.

  Vukovich lifted up his right hand and curled his index finger and thumb into the tiniest circle he could make. He put the circle in front of Zolecki’s face.

  “Because your nuts are this fucking big,” he shouted. “Your nuts . . . are this . . . fucking . . . big.”

  Vukovich walked away.

  Ho-ly crap.

  The next day Vukovich and Zolecki passed each other in the tunnel leading to the Phillies’ dugout.

  “How are ya, Todd?”Vukovich said with a friendly smile on his face.

  “Uh, good, Vuke. How are you?”

  “Great, thanks.”

  It was over. Vukovich made his point. He defended his manager—strategically in front of the players—and let off some steam and was ready to move on. Vukovich was hard-nosed, which rubbed some players the wrong way, but he was a golden-hearted man that cared about people. He especially cared about the Phillies. Vukovich died in 2007 from brain cancer, but he and Zolecki often joked about that afternoon at Veterans Stadium. It always brought a smile to Vukovich’s face, and a hearty laugh. And for good rea
son. It was one of the all-time chew outs with one of the all-time kicker lines.

  Years later, Roy Oswalt was clearly getting tired of answering questions about his health and his desire to keep playing. He wanted to scream as he spoke with reporters that night in Philadelphia, but chose to suppress his inner Vuke, and the reporters were happy for that.

  Davey Lopes, who had some old-school in him like Vuke, chuckled as he thought about Cole Hamels’ true spot in the Phillies rotation.

  “I don’t think I need to answer that,” he said.

  He tried anyway.

  “Let me put it this way,” he said. “I don’t think you’d rank him fourth.”

  Lopes had been the Phillies’ first-base coach for four seasons before leaving to join the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2011, so he had seen Halladay, Lee, Oswalt, and Hamels up close. He had watched Hamels progress over the years, and what he saw on June 8 was a mostly finished product. Hamels struck out nine in eight scoreless innings in a 2-0 victory over the Dodgers. Hamels was quietly developing into one of the best pitchers in baseball, not just one of the best left-handers in the game. From June 9, 2010, through June 8, 2011, he had a 2.58 ERA, the third-best ERA in the big leagues over those 12 months. Only Florida’s Josh Johnson (2.16 ERA) and Seattle’s Felix Hernandez (2.16 ERA) had been better. Falling immediately behind Hamels were the Los Angeles Angels’ Jered Weaver (2.63 ERA), Roy Halladay (2.64 ERA), and Roy Oswalt (2.66 ERA).

  “He’s definitely different,” Dodgers catcher Rod Barajas said of Hamels. “The best I’ve seen him.”

  Barajas knew Hamels well. He caught him during his one forgettable season with the Phillies in 2007.

  “He was primarily fastball-changeup and the curveball could be out of the strike zone and you didn’t have to swing at it,” Barajas said. “Now he mixes in the cutter and throws the curveball for strikes.You can’t lay off it anymore or assume it’s a ball.”

  “He’s grown up a lot,” Charlie Manuel said. “He’s way more mature. He’s been around guys like Jamie Moyer and Halladay and Lee and Roy Oswalt and guys like that. He has a better work ethic now. He’s getting stronger. He’s bigger than he used to be. If you see him with his shirt and stuff off, he’s developing into a man.”

  Manuel caught himself before he finished that last sentence and started to laugh.

  What the hell was he saying about admiring Hamels with his shirt off?

  But the Phillies were living dangerously. They beat the Dodgers because Hamels was fantastic, not because the offense did anything. The Phillies had scored three or fewer runs in 35 of their first 62 games, which was no way to live. Clearly, they had to do something. But even if they could make the finances work, they essentially could only upgrade in right field because they were not going to make upgrades anywhere else. If they did upgrade in right, they would be looking for a right-handed bat to replace Jayson Werth.

  GONE FISHIN’ (DON’T FORGET YOUR PANTS)

  The Phillies flew from Seattle to St. Louis on June 19, a Sunday evening. They had no game scheduled for Monday before opening a three-game series on Tuesday against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Looking for a little fun on their day off, Roy Oswalt took Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Carlos Ruiz, and Ross Gload to his reserve in Missouri to fish.

  “Every two minutes we caught something,” Hamels said.

  Hamels also caught poison oak, which began the most miserable month of his career. The poison oak spread over the back of his legs, which swelled up so much his ankles disappeared. The sores split every time he pitched, creating the sensation of somebody cutting him with razor blades. Mix in the sweat and 100-degree heat in late June and early July and he could barely think straight.

  “I was so miserable,” Hamels said. “You’re itching so bad you don’t sleep.”

  Gload and Ruiz, who were wearing shorts like Hamels, also caught some poison oak, but not as bad a case of it. Oswalt and Lee, who were wearing jeans, were fine. Lee had his arm wrapped around a tree with some poison oak on it, but still never got it.

  “Cliff probably grew up around it like me,” Oswalt said. “I probably had it on me so much when I was a kid I’m probably immune to it. I haven’t had poison oak since I don’t know when. I was deep in it. I walked everywhere Cole walked. Southern California probably doesn’t have a lot of poison oak.”

  A couple months later, Hamels, who said he had poison oak growing up in San Diego, pointed to the scars on the back of his legs. They were everywhere.

  Hamels made four starts with the poison oak from June 25 to July 10. He went 2-1 with a 1.61 ERA.

  “I think I was so focused because I didn’t know how many pitches I could be out there for,” he said. “It was like, this might be the last pitch because this hurts.”

  Hamels might have to think twice before fishing on Oswalt’s reserve again. Or at least come better prepared the next time he does. Oswalt was already looking forward to taking Lee hunting in the off-season. The Mississippi boy thought he could teach him a few things.

  “I’m going to show him how to hunt,” Oswalt quipped. “He’s an Arkansas boy. Hillbilly.”

  “You will not see a major move this year,” Ruben Amaro Jr. said. “I don’t think we need it.”

  Right, Ruben, right.

  Of course, it made no sense for Amaro to tip his hand or show panic less than two months from the July 31 trade deadline. A lot could change in that time. And he wasn’t even sure what he needed most: a bat or an arm in the bullpen. The offense was struggling, but the bullpen was in a state of flux. The Phillies opened spring training with Brad Lidge, Ryan Madson, Jose Contreras, and J. C. Romero in the back of their bullpen. Lidge opened the season on the disabled list with an injured right shoulder and suffered a setback in early June when he felt soreness in his right elbow. Romero, who won two games in the 2008 World Series, had stopped throwing strikes and was designated for assignment on June 16. Contreras went to the DL for a second time on June 23 with an elbow injury, which would end his season. Madson went on the DL on June 28 with inflammation in his right hand. Left-hander Antonio Bastardo, who had made Romero expendable, and rookie right-hander Mike Stutes made more relief appearances than anybody else in June. Former Rule 5 Draft pick David Herndon was third.

  Amaro could be patient. Halladay and Hamels were throwing splendidly, and after a couple bad starts the first couple months of the season, Lee was finding his groove. On June 11, Lee walked Chicago Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro with two outs in the third inning. Darwin Barney and Luis Montanez followed with back-to-back singles to score Castro to cut the Phillies lead to 2-1.

  It would be the only run Lee would allow all month.

  “Sometimes, you get locked in where things roll well,” Lee said. “I hope I’m getting into that.”

  Lee was rising while Oswalt was falling. Oswalt sagged in his chair like he had just finished 12 rounds with Bernard Hopkins on June 17 in Seattle. He labored through 6⅓ innings. He allowed eight hits, four runs, two walks, one home run, and struck out three. He had been trying to fool hitters, not bury them, for a month now. He had been trying to keep his back pain quiet. But now the numbers had started to betray him. He could no longer point to the sub-2.00 ERA. He was 1-5 with a 4.17 ERA in his last eight starts. He was drowning.

  He had his right leg propped up as he stared into the back of the locker in front of him. Minutes had passed when he slowly got up and turned to face the handful of reporters that had gathered a few feet away. He made eye contact with them, his indication he was ready to talk. He said little. After answering the nuts-and-bolts questions about the start, a reporter asked him if he was having as much fun as last year.

  “Yeah,” he said flatly.

  He wasn’t. He hated this. He was tired of the pain. He stepped onto the mound every five days just trying to survive. He started to have anxiety just thinking about his next start. He started to fear he would finish his career on the disabled list, just like former Astros teammate Jeff Bagwell, who reti
red because of a chronically injured right shoulder. Oswalt didn’t want to go out like that, but he wasn’t sure how bad the back was going to get.

  He finally succumbed to the pain on June 23, when he left his start against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium after allowing five hits, four runs, and one home run in two innings. This time, Oswalt came clean. He couldn’t tell everybody that everything was OK anymore. He was 1-4 with a 5.81 ERA in June.

  “I feel it when I sit down, stand up, walk, pitch, sleep,” he confessed.

  He then acknowledged his worst fear. He might have thrown his last pitch in the big leagues.

  “You throw as long as you can and when you can’t throw anymore you don’t,” he said. “Hopefully it’s not to the point where I can’t throw anymore. If it’s at that point, you just have to accept it.”

  The people who had wondered if Oswalt would finish the season had to be thinking more and more that he would not. He had an MRI scheduled in a few days, and believed it would determine his fate. He seemed prepared for bad news.

  And if he got it, what would he think about his career?

  “I’ve had a pretty good one,” he said.

  Pat Gillick had been in professional baseball for 54 years, so he had seen some of the best rotations in history. He also had one of the best eyes for talent in the business. He had been the general manager for the Toronto Blue Jays, leading them to World Series championships in 1992 and 1993; the Baltimore Orioles, taking them to the postseason twice; the Seattle Mariners, leading them to the postseason twice; and the Phillies, helping them win the World Series in 2008. Gillick’s acumen earned him a spot in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in July 2011.

  He knew what he was talking about. He looked at the rotation in Philadelphia and had every reason to believe it could survive without Oswalt and Joe Blanton.