To contend, major bench support required for Phillies
PHILADELPHIA >> Allow a winning streak to rage long enough and no hallucination should be unexpected. So don’t blame Brad Miller for what he thought he saw recently as the Phillies went two wide to pass the Mets and take first place in the NL East.
To him, it was real. And at the time, he had company.
“Obviously, you have your lineup on paper,” the veteran utility man was saying a week ago. “But you have to have as many good, professional players on the team as you can. You look at all those teams that get to the playoffs and win it, they’re just deep.
“It’s been awesome to see people step up. Early, we had Nick Maton helping us when we had some guys banged up. Travis Jankowski has been a spark. Odubel Herrera has been a spark. Obviously, To (Ronald Torreyes). Our big boys have carried a lot of the weight, too. But it seems like we’ve had a lot of guys contributing, which is necessary if you want to play in October.”
Miller is a leader and a reliable, veteran big-league ballplayer, good in the room, nice power, versatile, clutch. He is the kind of backup piece a manager requires to make the bumpy drive through slumps and x-ray machines and lousy strike-three calls from April to October.
But no matter how much the Phillies want to convince themselves otherwise, they don’t have enough Brad Millers. They can tell themselves that depth had helped them push into first place, a position they continued to hold via a 6-1 victory Saturday over Cincinnati. The truth is that the bottom of their roster has been filthy with substandard major-league talent, and that’s why they cannot create separation in a depressed division or fully convince their fans that Citizens Bank Park will stay open into mid-October.
As they were trying Friday to break away from the Braves in the NL East, the Phillies had a bench core of Mickey Moniak, Luke Williams, Travis Jankowski, Andrew Knapp and Alec Bohm. Only Bohm is a bigleague-qualified hitter. Knapp is a veteran backup catcher with a responsible handle on a pitching staff, but is batting .158 and is a career .217 hitter. Moniak, who was terrified while looking at a called third strike in his pinch-hitting appearance, is a certified organizational catastrophe, the embodiment of the uncaring Matt Klentak-Andy MacPhail era. Williams has something short of warning-track power. And in his seven seasons in the majors, the spark-creating Jankowski has crafted batting averages of .211, .245, .187, .259, .182, .067 and .247.
What are the Phillies running, anyway, a majorleague organization or a fantasy camp?
Were Rhys Hoskins not injured, the bench would have been strengthened with Miller, not Moniak, as a left-handed pinch-hitting option. Versatile Freddy Galvis is about to recover from what must have been one of the most severe quadriceps injuries ever to have been magnetically imaged, and he will add majorleague skill to the mix. But how is any team to win a championship with the amateurish arsenal the Phillies had assembled Friday and too many other nights this season?
By Saturday, Moniak, overdue to find a nice highschool coaching job, was back in the minors and interesting left-handed pitcher Bailey Falter was reactivated. With that, the excitement in the ballpark nearly topped that day Chase Utley grabbed the mike.
The Phillies have been stung too often by injury this season. True story: Even Roman Quinn was hurt. But if they choose to cite that as a reason for chronic mediocrity, then they can’t also tout the strength of their feeder programs.
“It takes a lot of people, and these guys are stepping up,” said Joe Girardi as the recent eight-game winning streak persisted. “Your bench is really important. It is even more important in the National League, with the pinch-hitting and double-switches. But I am confident. Right now, we have somewhat of a younger bench because of some of the injuries we’ve had. But we have seen these kids do some special things and we need it to continue.”
That’s how it is when things are going right: Reality is smeared.
If the Phillies ever settle, and no team really does, they can count on a fiveman bench of Torreyes, Bohm, Knapp, Miller and, OK, Jankowski, who did supply an RBI Saturday. If their bullpen ever regains health, it can be flush with acceptable major-league arms. That should work.
Until then, here’s to Nick Maton and Luke Williams, Matt Vierling and Cristopher Sanchez, Damon Jones and Neftali Feliz, Mauricio Llovera and Adam Haseley, Ramon Rosso and Enyel De Los Santos, David Paulino and — don’t you know? — The Mick.
Minor league baseball rocks.