PHILADELPHIA – If you think Philadelphia is a gloomy city in the winter, you should see the Phillies’ clubhouse in October.
Early Thursday evening, a crestfallen Kyle Lohse, normally a starter, was trying to explain why he was inserted with the bases loaded and promptly gave up a grand slam to Kazuo Matsui. Starter Kyle Kendrick tried not to criticize his manager for pulling him for Lohse. Jose Mesa wasn’t talking to anyone after he got booed off the mound. And veteran Jamie Moyer was analyzing how chaotic it has been trying to stabilize a jumbled pitching staff.
For an idea of why the Phillies are down 2-0 in the best-of-five NL division series, take a look at Thursday’s pitching bios.
Kendrick pitched at Double-A Reading as recently as June 13. Lohse was an innings-eating starter forced into an onionskin-thin bullpen. The Phillies signed Mesa in June after Detroit released him. Clay Condrey was sent down to Triple-A Ottawa four times this season. Antonio Alfonseca is with his sixth organization in seven years, and J.C. Romero, released by Boston in June, pitched six consecutive games down the stretch for a Phillies team desperate for bullpen help.
Not exactly the ’71 Orioles, is it?
“It’s hard,” said Moyer, Saturday’s Game 3 starter. “I’d be lying if I said it was easy. But you know what? This game is hard.”
Managing it can be even harder.
Phillies manager Charlie Manuel has used mirrors, masking tape and a lot of glue to keep his staff together, but it all came unglued in the fourth inning. Ahead 3-2, Kendrick had given up five hits, but a double, a walk and a single loaded the bases with two out.
He had thrown 66 pitches. Up came Matsui, a switch hitter, and out went Kendrick. Lohse had started 195 out of 218 career games. He came out of the bullpen all of four times in 68 appearances this season. Matsui hit a too-low fastball over the right-field fence for a 6-3 lead the Rockies would never lose.
“I don’t think it was a mistake,” Manuel said. “I liked Lohse against Matsui. One reason I liked him is because of his stuff, breaking ball, changeup and fastball. Also, it’s the second time I got him up and when I put him in, he was going to go to the sixth inning.”
Other pitchers remained tight-lipped on the subject, with only Moyer saying, “I don’t know the reasoning behind it but, again, I’m not the manager or the pitching coach.”
Kendrick would only say: “It’s his call. I felt OK.”
In Manuel’s defense, he has been handicapped by this patchy pitching staff, which finished 13th in the league with a 4.73 ERA. In December the Phillies traded for ex-White Sox star Freddy Garcia, paying him $10 million for one win before he spent the rest of the year on the disabled list. They couldn’t unload Jon Lieber, who’s also on the DL, and were too far over budget to buy bullpen help.
Thus, opening-day starter Brett Myers was moved to the closer role, and the Phillies rode Myers, Romero and Tom Gordon in September to overcome the New York Mets’ seven-game lead in the N.L. East.
Then again, no one’s feeling sorry for them. They’re down 2-0 to the Rockies, who lost three-fifths of their starting rotation by mid-August. And Thursday’s starter, Franklin Morales, was in Double-A on Aug. 3.
The Phillies know it, too. The mood in the clubhouse went from acceptance after Wednesday’s 4-2 loss to grim depression after Thursday’s rout.
“No team had ever lost a seven-game lead with how many to go?” right-fielder Jayson Werth said. “The Mets did that. We’ll start our own streak.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
