Klentak again stands by Kapler
PHILADELPHIA >> Gabe Kapler will manage the Phillies through the rest of the season, maybe longer. He will manage them in losses, in wins, in slumps and streaks. He’ll manage injuries and leaky bullpens.
Then he’ll manage them some more.
“That’s the plan,” Matt Klentak said.
Aware of a growing, fan-base-wide skepticism about Kapler’s ability to manage the Phillies to the postseason and beyond, the resident general manager dropped into the dugout Monday to bless him with a second annual vote of confidence.
Though he may have left open a small escape route, depending upon the interpretation of his ever-careful remarks, Klentak’s message was that he was solidly behind his oft-criticized manager and assistant coaches.
“I’m very well aware of all the criticism right now of the manager, the coaching staff (and) of certain players,” Klentak said. “I understand why it’s happening. When a team goes through a stretch like we’ve gone through in the last couple of weeks people are going to ask a lot of questions, both the fans and the media. And we are going to ask a lot of questions about ourselves. We’re going to look into everything we’re doing.
“My view right now is that the wrong thing to do is to point a finger at any one person and say, ‘You are the reason this is happening.’ I do not believe in that. I talked to a lot of people. We’ve had a tough time hitting the baseball. We’ve had a tough time keeping the ball in the park on the mound and we’ve had a really tough time with the injury bug. It’s very difficult for me to say that’s on any one person.”
Klentak’s stance, delivered from the rickety platform of a seven-game losing streak and a rapid fall deep into second place in the NL East, was that the team he’d assembled and the manager he’d hired were in position to complete the job.
“I believe the best we can do is rally together, and do this together and commit to each other that we’re going to get through this together,” Klentak said. “Let’s face it: This is the same team that was in first place two weeks ago. This is the same team that looked like a juggernaut for the first two weeks of the year. This is the same team that went toe-to-toe with the best teams in the National League about a month ago. That has not radically changed. “Our place in the standings has changed. We have not played good baseball. That is stating the obvious. To lose faith in our players, to lose faith in our staff is the wrong thing to do at this time. We’re proud to stick with these guys and rally together.”
Despite a lineup once popularly believed capable of dominating in tiny Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies entered a game against the Mets Monday with the fourth-worst batting average in the National League. With 91, the Phillies had fewer home runs than all but two NL teams. Among the reasons were the season-ending knee injury to Andrew McCutchen and the regularly scheduled Maikel Franco slump.
But the rampaging criticism of Kapler was connected more to subtle managerial skills, particularly his reluctance to outwardly discipline players for apparent lack of effort. In recent weeks, Kapler has openly expressed frustration about the reluctance of Jean Segura and Cesar Hernandez to run hard out of the box, yet he’d not felt it important to bench either player.
“I’m OK with the way he handled them, for sure,” Klentak said. “Here’s my view of hustle, and I completely understand why it is asked and why it is talked about because hustle and effort are things that are 100 percent in control of the individual. There is no circumstance. It is 100 percent in control of the individual and a lack of hustle should never happen.
“Let’s not kid ourselves. You’re not going to have 100 percent of the players in the league hustling on every play. It’s just not reality. I wish it was. It’s not, but what I think we need to be a little smarter about is when the spotlight is shining brightly on you and you’re in a losing streak, that’s probably not the time to take a play off. When you’ve won nine out of 10 and you’re up 5-0 and you don’t try to stretch a single into a double, you probably get away with that a little better than you might have this past week.”
To Klentak, sitting a contributing player for a perceived lack of effort would not be productive.
“We’re struggling to score runs right now and Kap has to manage,” he said. “But we work for the Philadelphia Phillies and we need to give the Phillies the best chance we have to win. To penalize the other 24 guys on the field by benching one and not putting our best lineup out there is not the right thing to do.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t address that. The instances you are asking about have been addressed and some of those conversations are very tough. They can get uncomfortable. But don’t for a second think they are flying under the radar and nobody is doing anything about them.”
Klentak spent some time Monday, as he often will, hanging with the players in the clubhouse. Whatever vibe it was that he’d picked up, it left him satisfied that Kapler had not lost the room.
“I’ve been a part of organizations that have made in-season staff changes before,” Klentak said. “You have to believe that if you’re going to do that you have to believe that your alternative is better than your status quo. And I believe in our guys.”
That means Kapler, who is in the second season of a three-year contract, no matter how much heat has been coming his way.
“Because nobody works harder,” Klentak said. “Nobody communicates better. And he continues to make adjustments and get better.”