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PHILADELPHIA — The Phillies had just lost their third game in four tries, striking out 10 times, not scoring since the second inning, not being entertaining enough to keep all of the fans from bolting early, pushing their season Monday to within one game of extinction.
Any chance at changing the batting order?
“None,” Rob Thomson said.
That’s the way he is. That’s the way he was last year, when his team was no-hit in the World Series and he recycled his lineup card, used it the next night and lost again. That’s why he never gave a lineup massage a thought Tuesday, running out the same hitters in the same order who had conspired to shorten the NLCS to a win-or-vanish night of terror for the team who once had the thing in command.
As usual, strikeout-prone Kyle Schwarber would lead off. Alec Bohm would try to supply cleanup power. Johan Rojas, a rookie rushed to the majors and being so tormented by championship-level pitchers that his value as a prospect would plunge, would be in center. Sputtering Nick Castellanos would remain in the seven spot. Dan Baker should have just recorded his lineup introduction from Game 1 and saved himself the inconvenience of shouting it out every night since.
But true to his word, Thomson was. True to himself, too. That would have been him late in the regular season providing an outline for offensive success in a long postseason. “Don’t panic,” he said. “If things aren’t going well, wait. The chances will come.”
So the chances came and the chances went Tuesday, and the Phillies disintegrated in the only Game 7 of their history, falling, 4-2, to the Arizona Diamondbacks and wasting a shot to reach a second consecutive World Series. They were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position, settled for five hits, and didn’t score after the fourth. Bohm did lace a solo home run, and Bryson Stott chased home a run with a loud double. But the lineup creaked all night, even with two out in the seventh when Bryce Harper skied to center as the would-be go-ahead run.
So why was Thomson one of the few among the 45,397 in Citizens Bank Park Tuesday unwilling to consider even a change-of-scenery batting-order shift?
“OK,” he responded for the final time before the game. “In the playoffs we’re 8-4, and we’re plus-31 run differential with basically this lineup. Stott has the second-best batting average with runners in scoring position in our lineup, and Bohm is third. Brandon Marsh is first. To move people around at this point just doesn’t make much sense to me.
“That’s my answer.”
His lineup card, his pen, his decision. And while it is only certified for another year, his contract to manage. So he would stubborn-it-out, even as Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo was openly trying to expose the flaws in that lineup masterpiece.
Not that being careful with Schwarber and Harper constitutes baseball genius, but the later the Backs went in the series, the more obvious it was that they were not going to give left-handed Phillies power hitters anything to redirect off the right field message board.
The Arizona manager made adjustments, radical as that can sound.
“We have to be smart,” Lovullo said. “If there is another target, we’re going to be very wise about the decisions that we’re making.”
That was his move, which worked as designed in Game 6 when Schwarber and Harper were walked a combined three times around Trea Turner, who went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. That’s the game within the managing game — move, counter move, move some more. Yet there was Turner back in that two spot Tuesday and going 0-for-4 again.
“This is the lineup that got us here for the most part,” the shortstop reasoned. “So keep doing our thing. Keep competing. And we have a good lineup. I think sometimes you can make adjustments and sometimes you can overreact. But I believe in all our guys, one through nine, whoever is in there. That’s a good thing.”
Thomson believed in his guys, which is fine, since he didn’t have an oversupply of All-Stars in reserve. But since when does how they are arranged become so difficult to change?
“You know what you’re going to get, the consistency,” Marsh said before the game. “That’s what we love about it. We’ve got a good thing going, just a really dynamic lineup. And it’s special. So we’re just going to have some fun and go out there and play our game.”
Next game, sometime in February, a pre-Grapefruit League exhibition against some college kids in Florida. By then a lame-duck manager, Thomson probably will offer the same wisdom he spread early on Elimination Day.
“Put their game on autopilot and be the best they can be,” he instructed. “And as normal as they can be.”
Autopilot. That should work.
Contact Jack McCaffery at jmccaffery@delcotimes.com
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