Even at home, homer hat should have a time and place
PHILADELPHIA >> From handshakes to hustle, optics are everything for a baseball team. Which brings us to the Phillies and their homer hat.
It’s a Panama hat with the Phillies’ logo that players doff and commence to parading around the dugout after — you guessed it — going yard.
There is a time and a place for everything, including the homer hat. But breaking it out in the middle of a rout, especially a losing one, as the Phillies did Wednesday late in their 11-6 loss to the Florida Marlins certainly tested the bounds of good taste.
Yet there was Bryce Harper, homer hat on head after a solo shot in the seventh inning got the Phillies within 10-6, or if you prefer, a grand slam of knotting it. It was Harpers’ second dinger of the game and 13th on the season. Something to take pride in, for sure.
But considering the score, it also looked like overkill. Kind of like celebrating a sack when your football team is getting crushed.
The Phillies still are walking a fine line here, although manager Joe Girardi says it isn’t bad form.
“No, no, I think that in this game you try to stay on that even keel and be the same no matter what, every day because there is so much fail
ure in this game,” Girardi said. “It doesn’t bother me. People could look at it the other way. It’s an energizer. It gets people going. Everyone can look at it differently. It probably depends on your thoughts on it.”
The Phillies, believe it or not, are 0-2 this season in games when Harper has clouted a couple of homers. They’ve lost three of their last four games in which he’s belted a pair, yet are 3-3 when he has multiple home run days.
At the least, the homer hat deal might be something the Phillies talk about along with their dreadful defense, lack of sound fundamental play, chaotic baserunning, riotous relief efforts and even the occasional starting pitching inefficiencies.
Girardi has been around long enough to know when it’s best to rally the guys in the clubhouse. With the Phillies just five games out of first place before Thursday’s rained out home game with the Marlins Thursday, there might be some value to a sit-down, one in which players and coaches can clear the air, if you will.
“My feeling is if I was to have one of those meetings, I wouldn’t tell you about it because it’s a team meeting,” Girardi said. “We address everything here. We do. It’s not a lack of effort from our players. They’re trying, they’re working. People are in the cage all day. I see them out here taking grounders every day. It’s not a lack of effort. Sometimes you can try too much or you just get in a little rut. You’ve got to turn the rut around.”
Turning it around, on the other hand, involves so many elements the Phillies might need a week of team meetings to appropriately address them all. Girardi has already diagrammed them.
“It’s consistent play,” Girardi said. “It’s making your pitches. It’s getting hits with runners in scoring position. It’s playing defense. It’s baserunning. It’s being heads-up; taking advantage of situations when they’re there.”
It’s also realizing there’s a time and place to for everything. So Bryce and Co. you might want to low-key the homer hat thing.
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The Phillies reinstated 36-year-old reliever Brandon Kintzler from the 10day IL and designated 34-year-old Neftalí Feliz for assignment, which is a nice way of saying he’s free to do whatever he would like providing he clears waivers then clears out his stall.
The announcement came before the final game in the Phillies-Marlins series Thursday was postponed to July 16 due to rain. It will be made up as part of a single-admission doubleheader with a 4:05 p.m. start.
Feliz was shelled pitching the equivalent of 1.0 innings in two appearances with the Phillies, his first work since 2017 due to injuries. The long-ago A.L. rookie of the year was 0-1 with an ERA of 36.00.
More than lack of velocity from the first time Feliz took the bump to Wednesday, the last time, was the almost complete absence of movement on his pitches. Nick Castellanos used Feliz like a batting practice pitcher on a prodigious grand slam in Cincinnati.
Girardi, by the way, wants Feliz to return to Triple-A Lehigh Valley if he goes unclaimed.
“I hope he stays with us, and I said that to him,” Girardi said. “I still think that he’s got innings left in him.”
Feliz certainly has more outs in him. But every inning he pitches comes with four hits, four earned runs, a home run, a hit batsman and two strikeouts.
Kintzler largely struggled in 20 appearances covering 18 innings before sustaining a neck injury that didn’t require surgery. He’s 2-1 with an 8.50 ERA, 31 hits (five home runs) and four walks allowed and 14 strikeouts.
“We need him to get better,” Girardi said. “We need him to pitch like he’s capable of.”
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Matt Moore was moved up in the Phillies’ rotation to start Thursday because Zach Eflin, per Girardi had “congestion, body aches.
“He feels better today and he’s cleared but we’re just going to flip-flop them today,” Girardi said. “He’s probably not at full strength.”
Moore was prepped for the start Thursday. After the rainout it’s not clear if he will take his normal turn Saturday or if it will go to Eflin, which was the original plan.
Girardi said Eflin tested negative for COVID.
To contact Grotz, email bgrotz@21stcenturymedia.com.