Pence finally got his size 12½ red Reeboks on August 2 in Colorado.
The Phillies had gotten luckier in past equipment scrambles. In 2006, they acquired Jamie Moyer on August 20 and Jose Hernandez on August 22. Both wore Nike, and both wore the same size shoe. Moyer wore a pair of shoes for his August 22 start against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. The next day those shoes were in Hernandez’s locker.
When Jeff Conine arrived on August 27, he became the third player in a week to wear those shoes until his shipment arrived from Nike.
The motto of a big-league equipment man: keep your ear to the ground and be prepared. In July 2009, the Phillies were leaving for a seven-game West Coast road trip. Coppenbarger knew there was a chance they could acquire Roy Halladay, so he had the pitcher’s name stitched on a uniform top and hid it at the bottom of an equipment truck.
A year earlier, Coppenbarger and his staff heard rumors the Phils might be in the hunt for Manny Ramirez, whom Boston had put on the trading block. Coppenbarger had Sheridan call Majestic, the league’s official uniform supplier, and discreetly order a pair of the baggy pants that Ramirez liked.
“We knew those weren’t off-the-rack pants,” Coppenbarger said. “Majestic made us a pair with no name in them and we tucked them away just in case.”
“Yeah, it does,” Braves third baseman Chipper Jones, a holdover from the team’s glory days, said with a big, almost wistful grin.
“We were the hunted for a very long time, so I guess it’s only right that we, as the Atlanta Braves, spend some of our time being hunters.
“It’s tough coming in and getting three of the best pitchers in the National League in one series. We’ve beaten all of them at one point, but seeing them all in one series is tough. But if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best.”
According to Jones, the comparison of the Phillies’ Big Three to the Braves’ Holy Trinity was legit.
“When those guys walked on the field, we were expected to win,” Jones said. “The Phillies have that swagger now.”
Does that swagger come from The Rotation?
“Yes,” Jones said without hesitation. “People used to ask me who the leader, who the MVP of our club was, and my answer was whoever was on the mound that night. Whoever we sent to the mound that night, we knew we had a good chance to win, and I’m sure the Phillies feel the same way. Their mind-set is they’re going to go nine and beat you. As an offensive player that gives you a lot of confidence, knowing it might only take one at-bat or one swing to win a game. That’s a big confidence boost for a team.”
It took only one swing for the Phillies to win the first game of the series. Raul Ibanez homered in the bottom of the 10th inning off reliever Scott Proctor to give the Phils a dramatic 3-2 victory just as the midnight moon was cresting over Philadelphia. The game, which was delayed nearly two hours at the start by rain, was one of the most entertaining of the season.
Halladay warmed up in the rain, changed into a dry uniform, and proceeded to pitch seven innings of two-run ball as the skies cleared. Young relievers Mike Stutes and Antonio Bastardo each pitched a scoreless inning, and the game went to the 10tth inning. Manager Charlie Manuel, his bullpen weak with Jose Contreras and Ryan Madson on the disabled list, gave the ball to 32-year-old minor-league journeyman Juan Perez, who had been called up days earlier from Triple-A. Perez treated the sellout crowd to a rarity: he struck out the side in the 10th inning on nine pitches, becoming the first Phillie to do that in 20 years. Ibanez’ homer gave Perez his first big-league win.
That Ibanez’ homer came off Proctor, a right-hander, was not insignificant. The Braves entered the series with the best bullpen in the majors, and Phils management—from Manuel to the front office—was very concerned with that unit, particularly the Braves’ three lefties, George Sherrill, Eric O’Flaherty, and Jonny Venters. But all three had appeared in the game by the time Ibanez batted in the 10th. He got a fastball from Proctor and did not miss it.
In the 2009 World Series and again in the 2010 NLCS, the Phillies had been susceptible to left-handed pitching. This is why everyone from front office adviser Pat Gillick—still the most trusted voice in the organization nearly three years after stepping down as general manager—to Manuel had voiced the opinion that the team needed a right-handed bat if it was going to have the season it dreamed of.
“I don’t want someone we’ve already got,” said Manuel, putting a little pressure on the front office. “I want a good hitter.”
It was right about this time that Houston Astros General Manager Ed Wade sent a memo to every team in the majors. The Astros were in the process of being sold and Wade was under orders to cut payroll. He let it be known that any player on his roster could be had for the right price.
In April, the Phillies had played the Astros and Manuel had kiddingly told Houston Third-Base Coach Dave Clark that he was going to get Hunter Pence from the Astros. Pence was a right-handed hitter capable of hitting in the middle of the order. He also played right field, the only real question-mark area in the Phillies’ lineup. Now, on the cusp of the All-Star break, he was available.
Manuel wasn’t the only person in the organization that wanted to upgrade the lineup for a big October run. Up on the executive level of Citizens Bank Park, GM Ruben Amaro Jr. was all for it and he initiated discussions with Wade. Down in the clubhouse, Halladay shared his bosses’ desire to make the Phillies better and stronger before the July 31 trade deadline. In Toronto, he’d always found it frustrating when the Red Sox and Yankees made July deals and the Jays sat on the sidelines. He was eager to see the Phillies mix it up, as they had a year earlier when they acquired Roy Oswalt at the deadline.
“We have the players here to win,” Halladay said. “But any time you can get better, you take it. Knowing that I’m only here for a certain amount of years, yeah, I’d sell the farm.”
As Amaro went to work trying to get the hitter his team needed, the Phillies took two of three from the Braves and headed into the All-Star break with a 3½-game lead in the division. They won the final game, 14-1, with Hamels on the mound.
Who needs another hitter, anyway?
After Hamels’ 11 th win, most of the Phillies headed off for three and a half days of R & R, while three-fifths of The Rotation headed to Phoenix for the All-Star Game. Hamels received a $50,000 bonus for being selected to the team and used a chunk of it to charter a private jet so he, Halladay, Lee, and Shane Victorino, and some of their family members, could fly to Phoenix together.
Halladay is seven years older than Hamels and his ship has come in, as they say. When Halladay heard Hamels was footing the bill for the flight he told Hamels to hang on to his wallet, that he’d write the check. Hamels wouldn’t hear of it. They were two friends tugging on a dinner check and Hamels was not letting go.
Kid Cole had become a man.
A few days later, as he got set to board a crowded commercial flight back to the East Coast, former Phillie John Kruk, the ESPN baseball analyst, heard about how Hamels had flown his boys to Phoenix in comfort.
Having played for the 1993 NL champion Phillies, a team that thrived on togetherness, Kruk knows a thing or two about team chemistry. He was impressed by Hamels’ generosity.
“That’s why they win,” Kruk said. “They all like each other.”
There was some debate about which pitcher NL Manager Bruce Bochy would name as starter. Would he go with Atlanta’s Jair Jurrjens, the league’s ERA leader at the time, or someone like Halladay, who was ranked fourth in ERA and had put together a tremendous body of work the previous season with a perfect game, a playoff no-hitter, and a Cy Young Award?
Bochy went with Halladay, and in introducing the Phillies ace at a packed news conference the day before the game in Phoenix, committed an interesting Freudian slip that Phillies fans hoped would prove prescient.
“I couldn’t have a better guy start the World Se . . .” Bochy began before catching himself, “. . . All-Star Game for us. When yo
u talk about the best, this guy is always on top.”
Lee endorsed Bochy’s choice.
“Roy’s the perfect physical specimen to be a starting pitcher,” Lee said. “His work ethic, his mind-set. He equips himself to be the best. He’s the best pitcher in baseball. If I were to pick a starting pitcher to win one game, he’s the one I’d pick. He’s deserving of it. I expect to see him put up a couple of zeroes.”
Halladay did just that, throwing two shutout innings before turning the ball over to his teammate. Lee pitched 1⅔ innings and allowed a home run to Adrian Gonzalez, who was putting up an MVP-type season with Boston. The NL overcame that home run and won the game, 5-1, on the strength of Prince Fielder’s three-run home run and a defensive gem by a guy named Pence, who—wearing a Houston Astros uniform—cut down a potential run at the plate with a laser throw from left field. The National League had secured homefield advantage in the World Series.
There was some hubbub about Bochy, the San Francisco manager, not using three of his Giants starting pitchers—Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Ryan Vogelsong—in the game while sending Halladay and Lee to the mound for more than an inning apiece. Conspiracy theorists saw Bochy trying to weaken an opponent for the second half. In the end, Bochy’s use of the Phillies pitchers wasn’t much ado about nothing, but it was much ado about very little. Halladay and Lee did not pitch in the first series after the All-Star break, but Dubee was considering giving both guys extra rest anyway.
Protective of his golden arms, Dubee was mildly perturbed that Halladay and Lee were used for more than an inning, but even he acknowledged that winning the game could have enormous benefit to the Phillies in a few months. The issue surrounding Bochy’s use of Halladay and Lee raged for a few days, and briefly when the Giants came to Philadelphia from July 26 to July 28 and Halladay and Lee’s turns in the rotation conveniently did not come up. But in the end, this was a non-issue to the men who mattered most. Halladay threw 19 pitches. That’s barely a trot for a horse like him. Lee threw 25 and said he wouldn’t have minded going out for a third inning.
Case closed.
This was not Halladay’s first All-Star start. He got the call for the American League in 2009, but didn’t fully enjoy the experience because the Blue Jays, at Halladay’s urging, had hung a For Sale sign on him days earlier and rumors of his being on the move flew everywhere.
In Phoenix, Doc had a blast. The man who saves his smiles for special occasions wore one on his face for three days.
“It’s fun to be able to come in and talk about good stuff and enjoy it and not talk about uncertain futures,” he said. “It’s been a great experience coming here with these guys.”
He was referring to Hamels and Lee, his brothers on the pitching staff.
Meanwhile, on the rehab trail, Roy Oswalt’s bad back was responding well to treatment.
It wouldn’t be long before The Rotation was once again fully locked and loaded.
Players returned from the All-Star break late Thursday afternoon on July 14 and boarded buses for New York. Though the mathematical midpoint of the season had passed, the first game after the All-Star break is considered in baseball circles to be the start of the second half. The Phils boarded those buses with the best record in the game and optimism for a big stretch drive was high. Not only had the Phils been a great second-half team under Charlie Manuel, but the front office had always made moves to infuse the team with a talent boost for the final months. While the team headed to New York to open a series against the Mets on Friday night, General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. peeked in on his organization’s minor-league talent in Clearwater. Amaro, who was hunting for a bat and bullpen help, spent his time in Florida classifying prospects as touchable or untouchable. His willingness to deal young talent for proven big-league help was popular in the clubhouse and with Phillies fans, who, in addition to racking up sellouts at Citizens Bank Park, had pushed television ratings for Phillies’ games on Comcast SportsNet up 22 percent from the previous All-Star break.
World Series lust was at an all-time high, and the first game back from the break couldn’t have gone better. Rotation pledge Vance Worley won his fifth game, John Mayberry Jr. drove in five runs, and Ryan Madson came off the disabled list in a 7-2 win over the Mets.
Hamels couldn’t keep the winning going the next day. He left too many pitches over the heart of the plate, was hurt by shoddy defense, and took an 11-2 loss. Every pitcher has a nemesis and the Mets are Hamels’. The loss was his 10th in 16 career starts against the Mets.
“When you play a team so often, that’s bound to happen,” he said.
The game got so out of hand that the beer-fueled bachelor party in the seats in front of the press box was actually more entertaining. Well, it was until one of the revelers took off his shirt in the late innings and displayed a hideous set of man boobs. One of the partiers waved a dollar bill at the shirtless man and the whole section cackled in laughter.
Mets fans.
The Phillies bounced back the next day and won the series, their seventh straight, behind underappreciated rotation helper Kyle Kendrick. Now it was on to Chicago.
The Phillies arrived in Chicago as a brutal heat wave gripped the middle of the country. That didn’t stop throngs of Phillies fans from traveling to Chicago. In the late 1990s, Phillies fans barely showed up at Broad and Pattison. Now, they go everywhere, and spend big coin to do it. They take over stadiums from Pittsburgh to San Diego. They travel like, well, Eagles fans. There is no better place to swig beer and watch baseball than cozy Wrigley Field. Phillies fans took over Wrigleyville pubs and packed the El as they rode the Red Line back and forth to their downtown Chicago hotels.
Six days after his All-Star appearance, a rested Halladay was set to make his first start of the second half against the Cubs. Phillies fans had come to Wrigley to hail their Doc. Little did they know he’d soon be needing one.
It was 91 degrees for the 7 P.M. game and oppressive humidity pushed the heat index over 100. Halladay took the mound wearing a red-sleeved undershirt, as he usually does. From the beginning, he looked uncomfortable. He did not look like himself. It wasn’t so much the first-inning home run he gave up to Aramis Ramirez—that happens, especially in Wrigley—it was more the mannerisms and look on Halladay’s face that said something was not right. His face was redder than usual. He frequently stretched his arms high above his head, as if trying to peel the sweat-soaked undershirt from his torso. Halladay got through the first couple of innings, but then began to wilt in the heat while working through an arduous 31-pitch third inning. Twice he hunched over his knees, like Bobby Clarke waiting for a faceoff, and took deep breaths as he strained to fill his lungs with air and cool his overheating body.
Chase Utley is one of Halladay’s favorite teammates. They both have serious personalities and an intense, get-in-my-way-and-I’ll-kill-you approach to the game. From his post at second base, Utley could tell that his baseball brother was having problems in the heat. Utley tried to buy some time for Halladay. He whistled for the umpire, asked for time out and bent down to tie his shoes, which really didn’t need tying at all. Halladay appreciated the gesture and went into a catcher’s crouch while Utley methodically untied his shoes and tied them again.
Halladay removed his undershirt after the inning and team athletic trainers tried to cool his body with frozen towels.
Dubee asked Halladay if he wanted to come out.
Halladay was emphatic. He wanted to stay in.
HIT (AHEM) KINGS
Cliff Lee had a lot of reasons for wanting to come back to Philadelphia. He liked the Phillies’ chance of winning, he loved the energy in Citizens Bank Park—where “fans don’t need a teleprompter to tell them to get up and cheer”—his family liked the city, and $120 million was nothing to sniff at, even if the Yankees had offered more.
Getting to swing the bat again in the National League also didn’t hurt.
“I prefer the National League style over the American Leagu
e style,” Lee said. “I like to hit.”
All the Phillies starting pitchers like to hit. They work at it in batting practice because they know handling the bat well can help them win a ball game.
Competitive beasts that they are, the Phillies starters staged a season-long competition to see which one of them helped the team the most with his bat. Bench coach Pete Mackanin was the judge and scorekeeper. He devised a points system in which a pitcher was rewarded for a successful bunt, a hit, an RBI, a walk, a line-drive out, a home run, and a quality at-bat of five or more pitches. Mackanin had the authority to award or deduct points at his discretion. You don’t think these guys like to compete? Lee once successfully lobbied Mackanin for a half point for advancing a runner.
“It was fun,” Lee said. “More reason to take an at-bat seriously.”
Joe Blanton and Roy Oswalt fell out of the competition because of injury. In the end, Hamels won with 49 points. Lee had 45, and Halladay 40.
Halladay led the team with 16 sacrifice bunts, which tied him for fourth in the majors. Lee hit .200 (15 for 75) with two home runs and seven RBIs. Hamels hit .159 (11 for 69) with three RBIs, but was deemed to have had better at-bats throughout the season.
“Cliff wasn’t happy with the results,” Mackanin joked after the season. “We might have to adjust the scoring system.”
No one would say what Hamels’ prize was, but it’s safe to say a group of competitive millionaires weren’t playing for a cheesesteak.
He got through the fourth inning and came out for the fifth. He threw one pitch and seemed to have no idea where it was going. Clearly hurting, he backed off the mound and took a deep breath as his eyes briefly seemed to roll into the back of his head. Halladay signaled for catcher Carlos Ruiz to come to the mound and Dubee and athletic trainer Scott Sheridan followed. The bulletproof pitcher could not go on.
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