PHILADELPHIA — The eighth inning of another dreadful moment in Phillies history was about to begin Monday, and that’s when the inner truth of a season and an era was pried open for a deeper look.
The story, as it has been advanced through the last two years, is that Rob Thomson’s team is one built for a city, and that the city was built for Rob Thomson’s team. Competitive and combative, talented and entertaining, hard working and often hard hitting, the Phillies did earn a connection to customer base unlike many franchises in modern Philadelphia history. With their charms and their bats, the Phillies have been one of those units that could record a Christmas album and not be ridiculed.
That kind of team.
Lost, though, in that schmaltzy love fantasy was the under-told truth that that same fans will not be manipulated like 5-year-olds made to believe the mascot has a birthday. And that’s what was revealed in a Game 6 against the Arizona Diamondbacks that was still close enough for the assembled 45,473 to fantasize about a late comeback. That’s what showed when the stadium lights were dimmed and flashed and twinkled for an ongoing and insulting attempt to control minds.
Weird when it began sometime in the second half of the season, and proof that given too many gadgets to play with any marketing know-it-all will take it a step too far, it was the signature gimmick for the entrance of Craig Kimbrel. Bad idea.
The room: Read it.
Earlier in the afternoon, before he’d planned to camp in his office to prepare for another game, Nick Sirianni was happily anticipating a night full of sounds from the Eagles’ noisy neighbors. Turns out the Eagles’ coach was right. Because the cacophony the crowd created upon that first dimmed bulb — no offense intended to the bullpen-phone conversationalists — had to jingle NewsControl Compound windows.
There was a boo, loud and sustained.
The fans knew.
They knew what had happened to drive the Phillies into a Game 7 of a series that should have been over days ago.
They knew the anatomy of any best-of-seven series. They knew there would be a given number of games that each team will win on merit, and that the Diamondbacks’ 5-1 victory Monday was one of those. But they also knew it is why any series often will come down to how many times a team plays well and loses anyway.
That’s what has happened in the NLCS. That’s why the Phillies are eye-to-eye with extinction, with Game 7 scheduled for 8:07 Tuesday night. They played well enough to win Games 3 and 4 in Arizona and strut into the World Series only to have Thomson invite Kimbrel to continue to vandalize a season.
In the lose-as-a-team spirit of sportsmanship, Kimbrel has had help in extending the series to the bell lap, yet no one since the middle of September has been as plainly responsible for Phillies failure. Still, Thomson has only begun to walk back his commitment to the 35-year-old with leaking velocity, vanishing control and general end-of-career uselessness.
“I would like to give him a little bit of a breather — not necessarily not pitch him, but just give him a little lower leverage situation,” the manager said before the game. “But I trust Craig, and we wouldn’t be sitting here probably if we didn’t have him, especially when Jose Alvarado was down for that time. So I think the stuff is still there. He’s just got to throw strikes and power the ball through the zone.”
Wouldn’t hurt.
As the Phillies snaked into the third tournament round, John Middleton more than once lifted his champagne-party goggles to his forehead and saluted the Dave Dombrowski approach to roster construction, citing a concentration on “redundancy.” That is, the Phillies were built to be deep enough to overcome trouble with any one particular player. Not that his bullpen is leak-proof, but Thomson enjoys multiple alternatives to Kimbrel.
Still, he went to Kimbrel twice in Arizona, where, in a combined total of one inning, the right-hander allowed four runs and five hits while being the losing pitcher in Games 3 and 4.
Kimbrel wasn’t the worst Phillies’ pitcher Monday — take a bow, Aaron Nola — but he was hardly lights out, pun intended. Afterward, Thomson went on a mini-ramble about him, concluding, “I thought he was better.” Since being worse was not an alternative, that made sense. Anyway, upon that bit of energizing news, the Phillies would regroup for a Game 7, which they should win at home.
“Even when we got down, 2-0 and 3-0 tonight, the fans were on their feet,” Bryce Harper said. “The crowd was great.”
The crowds have been legendary since late last season. Then again, there was that moment Monday when the final score flashed and the players walked off the field. That’s when a crowd that had known exactly why the Phillies were facing elimination booed some more. Built for the city indeed.
Contact Jack McCaffery at jmccaffery@delcotimes.com
Source: Berkshire mont