Phillies manager Girardi commits to somewhat iffy plan

“We’ll figure it out,” declared Philadelphia Phillies manager Joe Girardi on Sept. 5. “If we have to shuffle some people back and forth (from Triple-A Lehigh Valley), you have to shuffle people back and forth. You get fresh arms.”

This was how the Phillies committed to a Rays-like strategy of a “relievers game” every fifth gameday as they try to run down the Atlanta Braves or, well, some team for the second Wild Card. This followed a 4-3 win over Miami, a game in which the Phillies used nine relievers.

Will the Phillies stick to manager Joe Girardi’s new plan for every fifth start?

Number five starter Matt Moore was sent to the pen for the remainder of the season, seemingly, something some Phillies observers had called for with enthusiasm.

And interestingly, the next time Moore was called on, in relief, late in a game Sept. 6, he delivered. Knowing he needs an invitation to Spring Training somewhere, he threw two scoreless innings, striking out three in a blowout win.

If the Phillies make the playoffs, the bullpen-as-starter move will surely be called “gutsy” – even if it really wasn’t. If the team falls short of the playoffs, Phillies front office management would be damned for not giving their field manager a better fifth starter. Win-win if you’re Joe Girardi, huh?

(Girardi was an industrial engineering student at Northwestern, where he once argued his way to a higher grade in a math class. Think about that.)

But for Phillies fans, how would this strategy play out? Would Girardi even stick to his declaration? By my count, assuming no rainouts or other weirdness, the next bullpen game for the Phillies relievers would be Friday, Sept. 10 against Colorado in Philly, maybe the next day, also against the Rockies.

One has to wonder if the relievers for Philadelphia have the date marked on their calendars. Is it now a “thing” in MLB baseball to think, “Hey, I’ll definitely get the fifth or sixth inning tomorrow”?

In the meantime, the Fightin’s had to worry about beating the Brewers twice in Milwaukee, then the Rockies Sept. 9 after an overnight flight back to Philadelphia. They dropped the first game badly, 10-0, and the following day a Philly sports radio host was outraged over the poor quality of the relievers trotted out after the Phillies starter, which was, after all, related to the bullpen game two days earlier.

This outrage was artificially overwrought, like much of sports talk commentary, because the same host is no Matt Moore fan. He surely wouldn’t have been happy with Moore starting Sunday’s bullpen game, which – oh, right – was won.

On Sept. 8 the Phillies used their de facto second best starter, Kyle Gibson, a trade deadline addition to the team against the Brewers. Ranger Suarez, who will likely be considered second best for the season once he’s allowed to consistently throw six innings, was scheduled for the first Rockies game.

Unfortunately, Gibson didn’t have good command early on, and the Phillies fell, 4-3. Atlanta also lost, though, in front of them, as did the Mets behind them.

It would be up to Suarez, then, and the bullpen over the next two days to return the Phillies to five games over .500, and possibly only a game and a half behind the Braves, a place they were two days earlier. Luckily, their opponent, Colorado, was not 31 games over .500 like Milwaukee.

It was raining early Thursday morning in Philadelphia, so the question of a postponed game arose, and whether or not a rainout would alter manager Girardi’s plan to send his bullpen against the Rockies the day after Suarez’ start.

With about a 30 percent chance of rain at game time in South Philadelphia, Suarez was still the posted starter for the Phillies on their website. Tomorrow’s starter was still “TBD.”

That and the high likelihood of meeting Milwaukee in the playoffs if Atlanta could be caught were not the sort of near-facts inspiring confidence among the Phillies faithful on a gloomy late summer day.