Tag: Philadelphia Phillies

No-Hitter Etiquette

Halladay Brings No-Hitter Etiquette to the Postseason

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Needless to say, there were some no-hitter superstitions observed—or not—during Roy Halladay’s no-hitter against Cincinnati on Thursday.

Things got quiet in the Phillies dugout at about the sixth inning. “People stayed in their seats and sat there and watched the game,” said Charlie Manuel in the Philadelphia Inquirer. “[Halladay] came in and went down to the end of the dugout, sat in his chair, and didn’t say a word.”

In the bullpen, the relievers stayed seated and attentive. Ryan Madson, even though he needed to use the restroom in increasingly desperate fashion, did not move to do so until after the game.

The same even held true for team executives in the owner’s box, who stayed put through the final innings.

The same can’t be said for those in the broadcast booth. On ESPN Radio, Dave Campbell and Jon Sciambi wasted no time referencing the no-hitter, once it became apparent, with Campbell going so far as to “wonder if Don Larsen is watching?”

“I said something going to break at seven and eight,” said Sciambi in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “My first job is to serve the listener. On radio, specifically, they wouldn’t have the first clue if I didn’t fill them in on it. It’s my responsibility to tell them what is going on.”

Brian Anderson and Joe Simpson did likewise on TBS.

“There’s a responsibility there to make sure you catch audience,” said Anderson, the TV voice of the Milwaukee Brewers. “My nightmare is for people to be flipping through the channels and not know what’s going on in this game because I’m trying to follow some baseball etiquette.”

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Charlie Manuel, Play Your Best Lineup

Manuel Plays Late-Season Roster Roulette; Braves Benefit

Posted on by Jason Turbow

When the Phillies played Atlanta on the season’s final day, there were questions about whether Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel would go all out for a victory. It was a must-win for the Braves, but not for the long-since-clinched Phillies, and he had the clear option of resting his roster in advance of the playoffs.

In the end, he did a little of both. Manuel started his regulars, and left his entire starting outfield in for the game’s duration. Even though every infielder was pulled early, they each got at least three at-bats. Manuel even pulled off a double-steal in the eighth inning, and his team battled back from an 8-2 deficit (thanks largely to its bench) to pull within 8-7.

Still, that Cole Hamels went only two shutout innings (followed, though not consecutively, by an inning each from fellow starters Roy Oswalt and Joe Blanton) could be openly criticized. Manuel, however, did what he felt was best for his team.

He also brought to the fore an unwritten rule that’s valid only in the season’s final days (or sometimes weeks): teams with nothing left to play for should give their best efforts down the stretch against teams that still have hope.

It’s why in 1991, the fourth-place Giants trotted out a series of young players when facing the sixth-place Astros in their second-to-last series of the season, but utilized their starters against the Dodgers in their final three games. Los Angeles was battling the Braves for the N.L. West crown, and after the Giants won two of three, had to settle for second, one game back.

In 2004, Rockies manager Clint Hurdle paid no attention to the Code, trotting out lineups with as many as six rookies for Colorado’s season-ending series against Houston. San Francisco would have taken the wild card had the Rockies won a single game in that series, but the Astros swept, winning it for themselves.

“We were sitting there watching that, yelling, ‘This is a joke,’ ” said Giants closer Matt Herges. “We couldn’t stand Clint Hurdle after that.”

The counter to that opinion comes from no less an authority than Tigers manager Jim Leyland, a man whose track record of putting his team before any sort of moral convention is unmatched.

“My first concern is my organization,” he said. “If I have to play some younger players because I’m looking at them for next year, well, goddammit, if I’m that far out of the pennant race, the players I was playing weren’t worth a shit anyway. . . . That’s the one trump card the manager has. I’ve got the lineup card. I decide who goes to work today.”

In Atlanta, Charlie Manuel had the best of both worlds. His pitchers are rested, his regulars gave it their best, and nobody, really, is complaining.

– Jason

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Chase Utley, Slide properly

Utley’s Slide Draws Mets’ Ire

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Chase Utley plays hard. On this count, he has been exceedingly consistent throughout his career.

On Friday, he played hard. The Mets should have expected it. Instead, they offered barely-veiled threats of retaliation.

The play in question was a slide into second base in the fifth inning, as Utley tried in vain to break up a double-play, taking out second baseman Ruben Tejada in the process. (Watch it here.)

The slide was far from perfect; it was late, it was a touch awkward and Utley didn’t begin to slide until he was virtually atop the base, leaving him to land well beyond the bag, at Tejada’s knees.

Fault the execution, but not the intent or the intensity.

This is not the tack the Mets took. Jose Reyes called it “a little dirty.” David Wright said the Mets would “have to reevaluate the way we go into second base,” a not-so-subtle reference to retaliatory basepath tactics. “If he doesn’t mind guys coming in like that when he’s turning a double play,” said Wright in the New York Post, “we don’t have any problem with it.”

These, of course, are Tejada’s fellow infielders, and they might feel obliged to stick up for their own. Their own manager, however, had a different take.

“That’s a style that needs to get back into the game of baseball,” said Jerry Manuel. “You’re not trying to hurt anybody, but you have to go hard.”

Sure enough, Utley was not hit by a pitch through the remainder of the series. One of his saving virtues might have been that he’s so consistent with his intensity. Infielders will put up with considerably more abuse from guys who play all out, all the time, than from those who pick their spots.

From the Baseball Codes:

“When I was playing second base in Pittsburgh and we were running for the pennant,” said Phil Garner, “(Bill) Buckner absolutely smoked me on a double play— damn near broke both my legs.” Garner wasn’t ticked off at the play itself, which was clean and not unlike the treatment he regularly received from players like Don Baylor and Hal McRae (who was so consistently ferocious on the base paths that the 1978 rule disallowing the hindrance of a fielder who has just made a play is known informally as the “Hal McRae Rule”). Garner was angry because he’d never seen it before from Buckner. “This sumbitch slides thirty feet short for 160 ballgames, and now, in the 161st he’s going to slide in hard?” said Garner. “Fuck that. Play the game hard in Game 1 just like you did that day.” Buckner hadn’t violated any of baseball’s written rules—his play wasn’t dirty, just devious—but in Garner’s mind he’d clearly violated the Code. The next time Garner had the chance to turn Buckner into the lead out of a double play, he aimed his relay throw directly between the baserunner’s eyes. Buckner threw up a hand in self-defense; he deflected the ball but broke a finger in the process. Message sent.

Or take Carlos Delgado, who, while on base as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays in 2004, took out Red Sox first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz with a forearm shiver. One problem with the play, at least to Mientkiewicz, was that he wasn’t playing first base at the time but had volunteered to man second after Boston experienced an unforeseen shortage of players at the position. The infielder had, at that point, played all of one inning there in his seven-year major-league career and was by no means comfortable.

Also, in Mientkiewicz’s opinion, such takeouts weren’t a regular part of Delgado’s repertoire. “I’d seen him veer off on double plays for five years and not even slide into second,” he said. “Yet he sees somebody playing second who’s never played there before and he takes full advantage of it. If Aaron Rowand had knocked me on my ass I don’t think I’d have been that mad, because Aaron goes full tilt from the word ‘go.’ . . . If I were to always see Carlos taking guys out at shortstop, I never would have said a word.”

When Mientkiewicz got up screaming, the pair had to be separated. Red Sox pitcher Derek Lowe drilled the Toronto All-Star during his next at-bat, and Delgado was forced to avoid several other pitches during the course of the three-game series. (“Curt Schilling missed him once and came to me and apologized,” said Mientkiewicz.)

At least Utley hasn’t had to face that level of response. Yet.

– Jason

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