HOUSTON — It’s only natural for Philadelphia sports fans to compare their teams and successful runs across different sports. The 2017 Philadelphia Eagles were the most recent Philly team to capture a world championship and there are a ton of similarities between those underdogs and the 2022 Philadelphia Phillies.
The obvious being the parallel storyline of overcoming injuries to multiple star players, but after Friday’s classic five-run comeback against the Houston Astros in Game 1, you can add another.
Doug Pederson’s aggressive playcalling against an uninspired Bill Belichick was a huge reason why the Eagles won their first Super Bowl.
It’s not quite the “Philly Special”, but Rob Thomson put his ass on the line when he summoned starter Ranger Suárez from the bullpen to face the incredibly dangerous Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez.
Suárez, an unsung hero out of the bullpen in the NLCS Game 5 clincher, struck out the lefty slugger to retire the side and came back to face the rest of the “pocket” of batters that the Phillies meticulously planned around. He retired Alex Bregman on one pitch and allowed a single to Kyle Tucker, who hit two home runs in Game 1. Seranthony Domínguez would take over and strand the runner by getting Yuli Gurriel to ground out to end the inning.
The ramifications of this move not going well are endless. What if Suárez gets knocked around? That wouldn’t be great for anyone’s confidence heading in to a possible Game 3 start. What if Suárez ended up getting hurt? Bullpening two days in a row, even if those game are at home, is an easy way to tank your chance of winning the series.
What if the Philly Special wasn’t perfectly executed? What if Nick Foles didn’t fool the Patriots defense? What if Jason Kelce messed up the snap and the ball sailed past Corey Clement? What if Trey Burton wasn’t a quarterback in his youth? What if he completely misses the throw? If any of these things happen, the Eagles go to halftime only up by three points with the Patriots getting the ball back in the second half.
These are all things we don’t have to worry about because everything worked out.
That’s not the case for Astros manager Dusty Baker.
Houston’s bullpen is stacked with top arms. When the Phillies had Nick Castellanos up with the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh, Baker needed some chase. The veteran manager had former Phillie Héctor Neris warming up for quite a while. Neris didn’t even need to throw a strike to get an out against Castellanos, but it was hard for Baker to mess up in that spot. Rafael Montero, Ryan Pressly and Ryne Stanek were all still available at that point.
Fast forward to the 10th and Baker’s decision was still pretty easy. Stanek was still in the bullpen, but Baker said his matchup sheet liked long reliever Luis Garcia. He was also going for length and it backfired.
“I mean, he hit a good pitch, a fastball away in the short porch,” Baker said, referring to Realmuto’s home run. “That was the deciding run, but we had the winning runs on base to end the game. We had a pretty good lead early. I mean, it’s easy to say, oh, if Stanek had given it up, then how come we used Stanek. So it didn’t work.”
One manager had it easy. The other did not. The latter came out looking like the one who has 47 career postseason wins under his belt.
When asked to explain the decision to use Suárez out of the bullpen, Thomson said that Friday was Suárez’s scheduled side session day in anticipation for a start on Monday. He was told to prepare for the Alvarez, Bregman and Tucker pocket. Because Suárez had an up and down, the club will reevaluate him Saturday to see if he’s ready to start Game 3 in Philadelphia.
“He’s got ice in his veins, man” Zach Eflin said about Suárez. “You can’t teach that. It doesn’t matter how many pitching coaches you go to. However many pitching gurus you go to, you can’t teach that.”
It wasn’t just about Suárez. It takes belief to make the kind of moves Thomson made on Friday. With the game tied in the fifth, Thomson went to his best reliever in José Alvarado to attack the same Alvarez pocket Suárez would face later. Eflin recorded four outs, Domínguez, who could possibly be unavailable tomorrow, got five outs. David Robertson ended up being the last guy out after Realmuto’s go-ahead solo home run. He struck out Alvarez and allowed two runners to reach scoring position before recording the final out of the game on a ground ball to 10th inning defensive replacement Edmundo Sosa.
“I trust anything that man does,” Nick Castellanos said about his manager.
Pederson is coaching in Jacksonville now, but he’ll forever be beloved in the city because he simply believed in his players. Thomson is doing just that and it’s paying off.
Maybe it’s time to get started on that statue.
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