So Charlie Manuel was sitting in the dugout, shaded from the searing afternoon heat yesterday, while fielding pointed questions about the recent ineffectiveness of both his lefty relievers, veteran J.C. Romero and still-learning Antonio Bastardo.
And that was even before Ross Gload had to leave the game with a strained right groin while legging out a double in the sixth inning during the Phillies' 2-0 win over the Dodgers down in South Philly.
The manager almost never concedes there's a cloud on the horizon, even in the middle of a rain delay. It's his way of radiating the aura that everything will turn out just fine. More often than not, it does. So his responses to a couple of queries, delivered in his usual matter-of-fact tone, were notable.
Q. Are you worried your lefthanded relief?
A. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm concerned about it, yeah."
Q. Can you win with what you have?
A. "We can try. That's what you do all the time."
There was a lot of discussion in the days leading up to the July 31 nonwaiver trading deadline about whether the Phillies should focus on strengthening the bullpen or the rotation. They ended up opting to get righthander Roy Oswalt from the Astros, stretching themselves both monetarily and prospect-wise to do it. And Oswalt demonstrated why last night with seven shutout innings. Romero and Bastardo remained seated in the bullpen.
Stressing that he was speaking only for himself and not for management, Manuel said he felt at the time that the team "needed help in both places." He conceded that, forced to choose, he would have taken the starter and added, "[Lefthanded relievers] are hard to find. Those are real hard to find. I think everybody in baseball looks for those. I'm sure we're always looking for somebody. We're always talking about it."
We interrupt this column for the following special announcement . . .
