Rollins' series-changing, game-winning double Monday night was just the latest big hit by the little shortstop and his mates. Watching these Phillies swashbuckle their way through a second consecutive October, it is easy (and pleasant) to forget the bouts of big-game shrinkage that seemed to torpedo this team for much of the previous decade.
"When I first took over as manager here, in the first two years we chased the wild card," Charlie Manuel said before yesterday's optional workout. "There were individuals on our team - and I didn't call their names out in meetings - but we used to address the fact that we'd get tight and we would kind of panic and we couldn't play in the right moment. . . . We'd get up, go to the plate, chase bad balls, and things like that."
For four seasons - Larry Bowa's last two as manager and Manuel's first two - the Phillies won 85 to 88 games and wilted in the wild-card race. Manuel didn't name names, but the lineup regulars for most of that stretch included Rollins, Bobby Abreu, Mike Lieberthal, David Bell, Pat Burrell, and Jim Thome.
It is no coincidence that Rollins is the only one who is still here. He is the pivot man that got the Phillies from a talented team that couldn't to a talented team that can and does.
When Manuel says the Phillies "kind of changed the attitude on our team," he means the gradual replacement of those "tight" players with the current nucleus. Ryan Howard displaced Thome and won the National League Rookie of the Year award in 2005. Shane Victorino's emergence allowed general manager Pat Gillick to trade Abreu away in 2006. Carlos Ruiz became a gritty, pitcher-savvy alternative to Lieberthal. In Pedro Feliz and Jayson Werth, Gillick found productive guys for third base and right field.
"It helps," Gillick cracked, "to have better players."
