Charlie Manuel is a victim of his own success. Why else would he promise that the Phillies would get better after setting the franchise record with 102 wins during the regular season?
We will get better, Manuel said.
Actually, when giving the post-mortem of the successful-yet-disappointing 2011 season on Wednesday afternoon at the Bank, the Phils skipper spent most of the nearly 30-minute session talking about the last handful of games in the NLDS. It was during the final 34 innings of the series against the Cardinals where his team scored just six total runs. Three of those runs came on Ben Franciscos only swing of the playoffs.
If that doesnt illustrate the Phillies October swoon, what does?
Of course, its a much more difficult job when the only gauge for success is to win the World Series. Then again, after winning it in 2008 and then adding pitching aces Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt, the stakes are raised.
To his credit, Manuel would not have it any other way.
Our expectation coming out of spring training, we wanted to go to the World Series and win, Manuel said. That was our ultimate goal. We did not fulfill that goal. We had a tremendous regular season, we got to the first round of the playoffs and got beat. I look at it that we didnt reach our goal. We got into a 2-2 situation, we lost the fifth game in a shutout. Baseball is a game youre asking a whole lot when you say we got to win a World Series. Thats high stakes. With the talent assembled on our team people and the media put expectations that we had to win the World Series. It didnt happen. Im sorry for that.
MLB
General manager Ruben Amaro Jr. is sorry, too. In fact, Amaro kind of put the onus on Manuel and his coaching staff during his post-mortem on Tuesday afternoon. During that session, Amaro says he talked to Manuel about getting the Phils hitters to change their approach to hitting. It used to be they could sit back and wait for a home run or two to take care of the scoring.
Manuel says hes aboard Amaros wavelength, but pointed out that some of the Phillies offensive issues during the season and beyond stemmed from the spate of injuries that plagued the team. In fact, since Hunter Pence arrived in a trade with the Astros at the deadline, Manuel got to use his regular lineup approximately a dozen times. Worse, both Pence and Placido Polanco played the season with sports hernias, while second baseman Chase Utley missed the first 48 games of the season with a chronic knee injury. Jimmy Rollins did a couple of stints on the DL and Ryan Howard played the final month of the season with an injured ankle.
Even centerfielder Shane Victorino needed two different trips to the disabled list in 2011.
From an offensive standpoint, with the core players, the health thing definitely comes into play, having them on the field for a period of time and instead of having a disarray of lineups, Manuel said. We would get a better look at how good they can do, the health part and being on the field counts as much or more than anything. Talking about guys anywhere from 31 to 34 years old. Thats at the backside of their career, but near the top of what their production should be. When I say together, I dont know how many lineups changes we had, if we have same guys in our lineup for a long period of time we get a better read on it. The last two or three years we just havent had that.
The game has changed, too. Manuel pointed out that pitching and scouting had improved. The pitchers know everything there is to know about the hitters.
Of course it works both ways, too. Perhaps the question is if Manuel can teach old dogs new tricks?
Do the players listen to me? Without a doubt. I know they listen to me, Manuel said. Do every one of them? There might be somebody who didnt get to play or whos upset or something, hell tell you. The only way to find out is if you ask them and Im sure they will tell you. I think they listen to me.
Manuels roster is in flux after the disheartening loss in the NLDS. Rollins and Raul Ibanez are free agents. So too is pinch hitter Ross Gload. Utley and Polanco have been riddled with injuries over the past two seasons and after undergoing surgery to repair his ruptured Achilles on Wednesday in Baltimore, Howard likely will miss the start of the season.
Maybe the expectations of the 102-win team should be lowered?
Absolutely not. Thats the way I like it, Manuel said. We play the everyday game. You can put expectations on all you want to, its the expectations that they put on themselves and how we look at things. Right now when we go to spring training, what we will be talking about is getting to the World Series and win. Thats been our goal ever since we won after 2008.
And if the 2012 season ends similarly to the way the 2011 and 2010 seasons ended, Manuel again will be a victim of successjust the way he likes it.
E-mail John R. Finger at jfinger@comcastsportsnet.com.