The Rotation

by Jim Salisbury

  But everybody was waiting for that one start when they could point and say, “Little Roy is back.”

  Oswalt had been scheduled to pitch against the Nationals in Washington on August 19, but there was a 142-minute rain delay after he threw his warm-up pitches. Phillies Pitching Coach Rich Dubee pushed him back a day—no need to have him warm up again after cooling down, putting unnecessary strain on his back—and started him the next night. It was the right call. Oswalt’s fifth fastball of the game clocked 94 mph. He rolled from there, striking out a season-high nine batters in eight scoreless innings in a 5-0 victory.

  “He’s back,” Cole Hamels said. “I think that’s pretty much it. He’s back. When he has the velocity, you know it’s game time.”

  Oswalt’s fastball averaged 92.2 mph. It was 90.9 mph in eight starts from May 17, when he went on the disabled list for the first time, through June 23, when he went on the disabled list a second time. Kanye West blared in the clubhouse after the game. Oswalt’s teammates were pumped.

  “Vintage Roy,” Jimmy Rollins said. “He had that little fastball that he shoots from his chest and by the time the batter swings, it’s shoulder-height. I was excited, man. His velocity was super. I was looking up and he was hitting 93 still late in the game. I was like, ‘Wow.’ You could tell he has confidence in his back and in his arm.”

  Carlos Ruiz agreed, and Ruiz’s opinion carries weight. He is one of the most candid players in the Phillies’ clubhouse. He doesn’t speak in clichés.

  “That was him, you know?” he said. “He hit ninety-three, ninety-four. You can see he was healthy. That’s the best part. He likes to compete, but when you’re hurt, it’s hard. You could see it. He’s quiet, but you could see it in his face and body language. Something was wrong. He didn’t feel OK. Now I know he’s healthy.”

  If Oswalt was back, Hamels could get healthy, and Halladay and Lee could keep throwing like they had been, the Phillies could enter the postseason at full strength. That would be huge. For years, Charlie Manuel had been asked questions about using pitchers on short rest in the postseason: Cole Hamels in the 2007 NLDS against Colorado; Cliff Lee in the 2009 World Series against New York; and Roy Halladay in the 2010 NLCS against San Francisco. But with four aces, each on top of his game, they could have everybody pitching on normal rest.

  An early afternoon earthquake—5.8 on the Richter Scale—shook Philadelphia on August 23. Citizens Bank Park was ordered evacuated. But it would have taken the Big One to interrupt Roy Halladay’s workday. He stayed in the ballpark and finished his afternoon workout. Philly would get another taste of Mother Nature later in the week, when Hurricane Irene barreled toward Philadelphia on August 27. The Phillies postponed their weekend games against the Florida Marlins and flew early to Cincinnati for a four-game series against the Reds beginning two days later at Great American Ball Park.

  The Phillies had an unusual amount of time to kill on the road, but they found a way. Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Kyle Kendrick, Hunter Pence, Brad Lidge, Ben Francisco, Mike Stutes, Ross Gload, David Herndon, Home Clubhouse Manager and league commissioner Phil Sheridan and clubhouse attendants Sean Bowers and Rick Collinson held their fantasy football draft that Saturday in a conference room at the hotel, complete with beers and pizzas. (The only ace not to participate was Roy Oswalt; he had played in 2010, but spent so much time hunting in the off-season he rarely made a roster move or lineup change and decided not to play again.)

  The Phillies have had a fantasy football league since Curt Schilling got the ball rolling in 1995. Harry Kalas announced the first few rounds of those drafts, making them easily the coolest fantasy football drafts ever.

  With the first pick, Curt Schilling selects, running back, Emmitt Smith, Dallas Cowboys.

  This was Halladay’s second season in the fantasy football league, and he hoped to fare better than he had in the first. He had no idea how to draft a team in 2010, selecting quarterbacks Tony Romo and Matt Schaub in the first few rounds. Even Halladay couldn’t escape the trash talk, and he caught plenty of hell for drafting his backup quarterback so early.

  “What?” he said. “I’ll just trade one.”

  Players crushed Kendrick in 2010 because he always pushed the two-and-a-half-minute time limit to select a player. He would catch even more crap in this draft. He picked up a fantasy football magazine that recommended he not draft running backs before the fifth round, advice he followed.

  “Strategy, bro,” he said after teammates mocked his every pick. “Strategy.”

  Of course, that strategy—it was so good he should have called it strate-gery—left him without a single starting running back in the NFL.

  “That magazine is going to be out of business next year,” Lidge said.

  “No matter what, though, if I had drafted a good team, they still would have thought my team was brutal,” Kendrick said.

  But Kendrick quickly realized he screwed up when he texted teammate David Herndon minutes after the draft ended.

  “Hey, I was going over our teams and you’re pretty strong at running back, but weak at wide receiver,” he said. “We should try to work out a deal.”

  “Dude, it’s Day One!” Herndon replied.

  Halladay and Lee follow their personas in fantasy football. Halladay came prepared, although he denied it.

  “I cheat,” he said. “Don’t tell anybody.”

  Lee showed up like he couldn’t care less.

  “Cliff gets in there and wings it a little bit, just like everything else,” Lidge said. “But Cliff finds a way.”

  “I downloaded an app and I’ve still got the best team,” Lee boasted.

  The players with the most time on their hands seem to have the most success in the fantasy league, especially since the Phillies returned to the postseason in 2007. Left-hander Les Walrond won the league in 2008. He pitched in just six games for the Phillies and did not make the postseason roster. Left-hander Jack Taschner won the league in 2009. He pitched in 24 games and went home to Wisconsin after he did not make the postseason roster. Herndon did not make the 2010 postseason roster and won the league.

  Trash-talking text messages fly furiously after the players scatter across the country for the off-season. Lee, Francisco, and Gload are the best trash talkers. Lidge isn’t bad, either.

  “He went to Notre Dame,” Herndon said. “He’s smarter than everybody.”

  But Kendrick is learning to talk smack, kind of like a kid learns to swim after being dropped into the deep end of the pool.

  “Kyle has taken so much heat he’s learning how to talk trash because he’s the absolute redheaded stepchild of our league,” Lidge said. “But everybody talks trash when it comes down to it. Everybody has good and bad weeks, and everybody is subject to getting slaughtered, which is what makes it so fun.”

  Like any fantasy football league, it is more about the camaraderie and ball busting than it is about the trophy at the end of the season.

  “It’s a fun thing to stay on each other throughout the season when we’re traveling and all over the place,” said Hamels, who won the league in 2006. “We’ve got like one day a week where we’ll still be thinking about each other and still seeing how things are going. It’s our bonding time.”

  As the end of the month approached, management tried to add a left-handed bat to the bench, much like it added Matt Stairs in August 2008. They had Ross Gload, but he was playing with an injured hip, hitting .238 (20 for 84), with five doubles, zero home runs, and six RBIs in 72 games before the series against the Reds. He was a decent option, but the Phillies were looking for more pop.

  They wanted Jim Thome.

  Thome would turn 41 on August 27, and he knew he was running out of time to win a World Series. He also knew the Phillies had positioned themselves better than any other team, and if he could reunite with Charlie Manuel, his old hitting guru, he believed he could give Philadelphia a good couple of months in a pinch-hitting role. But it would be nearly impossible to
make the trade happen. Players have to clear waivers before being traded in August and because the Phillies had the best record in the National League, they would have last crack at him. In other words, if the Atlanta Braves knew the Phillies wanted Thome, who was playing with the Minnesota Twins, they could claim him to block him from going to Philly. The Twins would have to trade him to Atlanta or pull him back off waivers if they could not complete a deal. And if the Twins pulled him back, he could not be placed on waivers again.

  The Phillies and Twins could circumvent the rules, but it seemed unlikely. Minnesota could unconditionally release Thome, which would make him a free agent. But the Phillies and Twins are known for not rocking the boat when it comes to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig’s rules. The Twins were as unlikely to unconditionally release Thome as the Phillies would be to sign him if it happened.

  NICE TEAM, KYLE

  The first round of the Phillies’ 2011

  fantasy football league draft.

  1. Ben Francisco–Texans running back Arian Foster

  2. Ross Gload–Vikings running back Adrian Peterson

  3. Brad Lidge–Ravens running back Ray Rice

  4. Cliff Lee–Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles

  5. Roy Halladay–Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers

  6. Hunter Pence–Eagles running back LeSean McCoy

  7. Kyle Kendrick–Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson

  8. Sean Bowers and Rick Collinson–Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew

  9. Cole Hamels–Falcons wide receiver Roddy White

  10. Mike Stutes–Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson

  11. Phil Sheridan–Eagles quarterback Michael Vick

  12. David Herndon–Rams running back Steven Jackson

  It never got to that point. The Cleveland Indians claimed Thome, and the Twins and Indians completed a trade for him on August 25. Thome could have blocked it, but it was the only team he had trouble saying no to. The Indians drafted him in 1989, and he spent his first 12 seasons with them before signing a six-year, $85 million contract with the Phillies in December 2002.

  It must have been a sinking feeling for Thome. The Indians were grasping at straws when they acquired him. They were 63-64, and 6½ games behind the Detroit Tigers in the American League Central and 14½ games behind the New York Yankees in the AL wild-card race. They had no shot to catch the Tigers, and everybody knew it.

  The Phillies talked with the Tampa Bay Rays about Johnny Damon, but they found the price too high. So after falling short on Thome and Damon, they settled for John Bowker, who was playing in the minor leagues for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

  They whiffed. Bowker went 0 for 13 with seven strikeouts before the Phillies sent him home following the season. They would have to hope one of their own bench players would have a Matt Stairs moment in the postseason.

  The Phillies finished the month with Roy Halladay throwing seven scoreless innings in a 9-0 victory against the Reds on August 30, and Cliff Lee throwing 8⅔ scoreless innings against them in a 3-0 victory on August 31.

  The postseason couldn’t come quickly enough. Halladay went 3-1 with a 2.62 ERA in August, while Lee went 5-0 with a 0.45 ERA. Lee became just the third pitcher in MLB history to go 5-0 with an ERA under 1.00 in two separate months in the same season. He joined Bob Gibson, who went 6-0 with a 0.50 ERA in both June and July 1968; and Walter Johnson, who went 5-0 with a 0.24 ERA in April and 6-0 with a 0.81 ERA in July 1913. Lee also became the first pitcher to throw at least seven scoreless innings in 10 or more starts in the same season since Dwight Gooden and John Tudor had in 1985.

  Pretty good, huh?

  Whatever.

  Lee needed just one more out on August 31 in Cincinnati to throw his sixth shutout of the season, but got into trouble after retiring the first two batters he faced in the ninth. He allowed a double to Joey Votto, walked Jay Bruce on a full count, and hit Miguel Cairo with a pitch to load the bases. Charlie Manuel reluctantly walked to the mound to retrieve the baseball from Lee’s left hand.

  “I want Madson,” Manuel said.

  “You sure?” Lee replied.

  “Damn sure.”

  Ryan Madson got the final out to end the game to maintain the Phillies’ 7½-game lead over the Braves.

  “It’s not very often you go 8⅔ and not give up a run and somehow not feel good about it when it’s over,” Lee said. “It worked out. Madson came in and got the guy out. It’s hard to question the move. Whatever.”

  Whatever.

  Fans and reporters pick up players’ little idiosyncrasies over time. Cole Hamels habitually inserts “ya know” in between sentences. Domonic Brown offers an, “Aw, man.” Shane Victorino drops “no questions asked” or “you know, like I said” when responding to a question. Pat Burrell always said, “Thanks, guys” to signal to reporters—he despised them—that the interview was over and it was time to go away. Burrell might be gone, but his famous “Thanks, guys” catchphrase lives on with Chase Utley.

  But, “Whatever?” That’s Lee’s.

  Lee had a “whatever” moment at the plate in the fourth inning against Cincinnati that night. Reds left-hander Dontrelle Willis jammed him on a pitch and the ball shot straight to Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips. Lee glanced at his bat after he swung through and by the time he looked toward first base he noticed the ball going into Phillips’ glove. He took a couple steps toward first base before waving dismissively at the play, like, “Ah, forget it.”

  Whatever.

  “I should have run right there,” he said. “There’s no way he’s throwing that ball away, but that’s not good. I should have run right there. But whatever.”

  “Whatever!” Kristen Lee said a month later. “Oh, my gosh! I finally told him. I’ve told him for years—just don’t say whatever about everything. He says that about everything. I was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, you’re known as saying whatever just like I’ve been telling you for years.You’re known for that. They’re making comments in the media about how you say whatever all the time.’ Everything is whatever.”

  Kristen started to laugh.

  “Just so you know, he does that to me, too,” she said. “It’ll be, ‘Hey, Cliff, Jaxon’s teacher said he had trouble at school today or something.’ He’ll say, ‘Whatever. It doesn’t really matter.’ Yeah, for you. You’re 1,000 miles away. Yeah, everything is whatever.”

  SEPTEMBER

  Six and a half months after they had assembled in Clearwater, the Phillies glided into September on the wings of 18 August wins. The season was shaping up just the way they had hoped, just the way it had to, really, considering the blue-ribbon talent management had assembled and the money it had spent to bring it all together. Ownership had gone all-in when it stretched the payroll to sign Cliff Lee, and the baseball ops people had sacrificed a load of blue-chip talent to get Hunter Pence. Since February, the team had operated against a high-pressure, World Series-or-bust backdrop, and now, entering the final month of the regular season, the feeling raged like an inferno.

  The Phillies had led the National League East every day but one. They had built their lead to 7½ games and raised their record to 41 games above .500 when they completed a four-game sweep of the Reds in Cincinnati on September 1.

  October couldn’t come fast enough.

  September would be the longest Christmas Eve these guys had ever lived through.

  “Win games,” Charlie Manuel said after completing that sweep in Cincinnati. “Keep winning.”

  Despite a clear path to the postseason, there was plenty the cruising Phillies could still accomplish in September:

  Never had a Phillies team been 42 games over .500. Getting there would mean something.

  No Phillies team had ever won more than 101 games. Eclipsing that mark would mean something.

  Individually, September would be an important month for a key member of The Rotation. Roy Oswalt had recovered fully from the back injury that had marred his season and was ready to build the ar
m strength that would bring the crackle back to his fastball and put him in position to be the October contributor Phillies officials thought he’d be when they dealt for him more than a year earlier.

  In addition to all this, Manuel wanted to make sure his club finished with the best record in the majors for the second-straight year. That, coupled with the NL’s win in the All-Star Game, would ensure the Phils home-field advantage throughout the postseason. For even as they chugged toward 100 regular-season wins, what mattered most was the 11 postseason wins it would take to win the World Series. Being able to open three separate series in front of home crowds at Citizens Bank Park would be a huge benefit to the team. Or so everyone thought.

  Ultimately, what should have been the Phillies’ easiest month turned out to be their most difficult. A series of August rainouts eliminated the off days that can refresh a body and a string of lackluster performances, culminating with an embarrassing eight-game losing streak following the division clincher, caused angst in the streets and resulted in more than a few boos in the stands.

  Manuel resisted laying into his team during the losing streak. For one thing, he knew a post-clinch hangover was pretty much inevitable for a team riding as high as the Phillies. For another, he wasn’t playing his big guns every night. Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley were working their way back from a groin injury and a concussion, respectively, Hunter Pence had a cranky knee, and Ryan Howard needed time off because of a sore ankle. The Phillies played their regular eight position players in the same lineup just four times in September. What was Manuel supposed to do, air out the Lehigh Valley IronPigs?

  Clubhouse eruptions have to be carefully timed and executed. Manuel had chewed out his club a week earlier after a pair of uninspiring efforts in Houston and he knew the surest way to have tirades fall on deaf ears was to have too many of them. This is not to say Manuel is against an old-fashioned airing out. In late August 2010, as the team was being swept at home by Houston, Manuel blasted his players behind closed doors and called them “yesterday’s All-Stars.” The Phils reacted positively to the spanking and went 27-8 the rest of the way. A season later, the Phillies were a lot closer to the regular-season finish line and were physically bruised and banged-up. Manuel, 67 years old and nearing a half century in the game, knew this was the time for a softer touch. He sent messages through the press that the team needed to pick up its play, but no one got scalded.