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Photo by All-Pro Reels from District of Columbia, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia CommonsTwo Complaints, One Answer
Philadelphia's press woke up with two complaints about Friday night, and interim manager Don Mattingly has an on-record answer for exactly one of them. The other one he says he does not understand, and that is the part a one-game price does not cover.
Philadelphia's press filed two complaints about Friday night. Only one of them has an answer.
Complaint one is the bullpen. Yardbarker second-guessed the sequence: Jonathan Bowlan, Chase Shugart and Brooks Raley in three straight innings, two rested arms unused. The answer is on record. Interim manager Don Mattingly, to MLB.com, on Shugart over Orion Kerkering: "I just like the way he's been throwing the ball." Kerkering left in a walking boot, and Jhoan Duran had worked two straight days. Hate it. It had reasons.
Complaint two is the baserunning. Ninth inning, Philadelphia up a run, Bryce Harper on second with one out, Alec Bohm's grounder to Mauricio Dubón at short, and Harper tagged off the bag for the second out. Mattingly, to the Inquirer Friday night: "A little bit contagious," he said. "I don't understand it really. But, again, we'll just keep talking about it and working through it."
Not a one-play quote, either. The Inquirer had him on the same subject Tuesday, under the headline "It can cost you a game." Brandon Marsh twice, Harper once, by the paper's count.
That is the gap. The Good Phight ran "Four leads, then a funeral." Ellis priced the same night: "A September walk-off over the club chasing you is worth exactly one game."
Ellis is right about the standings: five back, fourteen to play, magic number nine by MLB's count, season series 8-3.
But the standings are not the argument. A bullpen having a bad night is one game. A manager saying he does not understand his own club's baserunning, in September, three days after he was last asked, is not one game. It is a sentence, and you cannot pitch your way out of a sentence.
Tonight: Tyler Mahle for Atlanta. Philadelphia scratched Jesús Luzardo (shoulder stiffness) and opens with the bullpen, no starter named this morning. The arms everybody complained about get the first pitch.
My Monday call on this series is still open. It closes tonight or Sunday. I write it either way.
Ellis priced the night, and the price was right. Nobody has priced the quote.
The Tilt
Philadelphia's real September problem is the one its manager says he does not understand.
— Dex Ponce
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