For those of you who like things neat and tidy, the nadir was officially reached on July 7, 2006, following the Phillies 85th game of the season when the manager publicly asked fans to “pray for us” and one beat writer concluded his coverage by writing, Could prayer help? Maybe. So far nothing else has.
I am reminded of the story of a conversation between legendary Orioles' manager Earl Weaver and one of his players, Pat Kelly, who was also an evangelical minister. Kelly told the story of how he urged the decidedly profane Weaver to "walk with the Lord," to which his manager replied he'd rather have Kelly "walk with the bases loaded."
3 comments:
Old Uncle Charlie did say something in that press conference last night that made me think. Somebody asked a question along the line of "How does it feel to be sucking so bad for over a month now?" and Charlie answered something like "It seems like a long time since we played in Arizona."
Indeed, it does seem that things took a decided turn for the worse after that Arizona series. After sweeping the DBacks, the Phillies were 32-27. Since then they have gone 6-20. At the end of that series, they had outscored opponents 298-286. Since then they have been outscored 108-163. In other words, they were averaging +.21 runs per game over opponents before and have been an incredible -2.11. since.
You can draw a line through the 2006 season right at June 7, the day of the last game in Arizona. They are two different teams -- on one side of the line is a team that is sorta OK; on the other is one that is absolutely awful. What caused the season to turn bad so suddenly?
Charlie, my man, you'd better start praying for yourself.
No offense Charlie... but there are far more important things in the world to be praying over than a baseball team.
God can't help the Phillies. Only a #1 starter, a more consistent middle relief, and some consistency in the offense would help. That's Pat Gillick's job. God wasn't hired as GM.
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