Oh, Chollie!

Normally, I try to stay away from ranting in this blog because I don't want it to sound too Negadelphian, but there is something I need to get off my chest.

Personally, I feel that Charlie Manuel and his cronies consistently steal wins or the possibility to win away from their team because of their blunders, extreme patience with pitchers, and their inability to substitute players properly. Davey Lopes is excused from this rant.

Before I get to the negatives, I will say that Manuel does do a good job of keeping the club house loose and the players seem to be happy to play for him. However, he seems like nothing more than a 'glorified' bench coach. Charlie Manuel, with a far better team, has only managed to get 3 more wins than Larry Bowa had. 3 more, that's it. Yes, he finally "aided" the Phillies to their first division title in 14 years, but the standings also included no NL East team winning at least 90 games.

Why am I writing this? Well after last nights ridiculous ending, I felt that I had no choice. Manuel's third base coach, Steve Smith (a man who has had a number of guys thrown out at the plate during his tenure), had Pedro Feliz tag up on a Shane Victorino on a fairly short fly ball, only to have him thrown out at the plate. Now, there are certain situations where you try to do that, but not when you have a slow runner combined with the fact Chase Utley was up next with the bases loaded. Yes, the Chase Utley, April's player of the month and a National League MVP candidate. That Chase Utley.

Why else was I upset? I was upset that Pat Burrell was removed from the lineup for T.J. Bohn again in a close game where Burrell's bat might be needed. Nope, Charlie wanted T.J. Bohn up after Ryan Howard if the game got to that point. Immediately after that move, Eric Bruntlett pinched hit for Geoff Jenkins, which lead him to play right field after he grounded out. So now, our outfield consisted of T.J. Bohn in left, Victorino in center, and Eric Bruntlett in right. By removing Burrell and Jenkins, our defense in the outfield actually got worse. Were you being serious Charlie? Why pinch run for Burrell when there were already 2 outs and you had Eric Bruntlett up next. There is no way that Bohn or Burrell would have scored from first on a Bruntlett hit. If Bruntlett did get on, Burrell would have been in scoring position regardless.

So now, So Taguchi, Pat Burrell, and Geoff Jenkins were all out of the game. Our starting outfielders and our 4th outfielder. Good work Charlie, good work. Now into the bottom of the ninth, Charlie exhausted his entire bench after pinch-hitting Greg Dobbs for the pitching spot and Carlos Ruiz pinch-ran for Chris Coste, another move that made absolutely no sense. With Feliz on second, a slow runner, and Chris Coste on first, Manuel chose to pinch-run for Coste. Why? Ruiz cannot run past Feliz on a base hit, so he can only go as far as the slow-footed Pedro Feliz runs. Why waste a bench guy? There was absolutely no need to pinch run for Coste when he was standing on first. And then we saw how slow Feliz is when he was thrown out at home tagging up. Good job Charlie. Good job.

At least the Phillies have their only starting pitcher going today (Thanks Pat). As far as I am concerned for the rest of the year, Brett Myers, Jamie Moyer, Kyle Kendrick, and Adam Eaton are nothing more than long relievers, though we can label Jamie Moyer as the occasional spot starter.

The Phillies are now 27-24 and have hit their new bump in the road, 5 games over .500. They've tried to go over that mark as few times this year, but have failed to do so, promptly losing consecutive games to make sure of it. They're 2 behind the Marlins and 1 behind the Braves for second place. The Phillies current expected win-loss record sits at 28-23.