The Phillies have to be glad that the month of May is over. It was the worst month in terms of amounts of losses for the month since 1928, then the team lost 22 games in the month. May of 2017 tied that mark, and it was one away from tying the most amount of losses ever in a month of May, which is 23 – the Phillies did that in 1923.
We’ve heard a lot of possible solutions from ‘bring up the kids from AAA’ to firing the manager, Pete Mackanin. But, what does the GM think about this recent run of what is more than just ‘bad luck.’
Jim Salisbury interviewed Phillies GM, Matt Klentak, and he didn’t see all that fazed by it, he seems to have settled on the fact that the Phillies may be in line for the first pick because of it, and the team is doing all it can to ‘pull out of it.” Klentak will not rush any player to the big leagues, he said. That is exactly what the Phillies do most of the time, a lot of Phillies players have languished in the minors for years.
Klentak will not be firing Pete Mackanin, or pitching coach Bob McClure, or will he be making major changes by bringing players up. He talked of meaningless stats like exit velocities with talking about Maikel Franco, and explained that Odubel Herrera had a good April. Klentak could be the problem, (is he watching what we are) and that certainly seems like it could be an issue with this team. He sounded like this was just part of a plan to tank this season and end up with a great pick in the draft because of it.
The issue is that this team wasn’t supposed to be this bad though, it’s the worst team in the league. If you listen to Klentak though, it’s something he can live with. So Phillies fans prepare, it’s going to be a very long season with this type of attitude from our GM.
