Charlie Manuel Pretty Sure Phillies are Great Despite Copious Evidence to Contrary

The Phillies haven’t had a chance to become so bad in 2013 that we can say with certainty what their long term issues are.

Charlie Manuel explains to a bored umpire how okay the Phillies are going to be.  Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

But they have played enough to have the worst pitching start in team history.  The only team worse is the 1931 squad, who finished 66-88 and also had a catcher with an adorable nickname who was powerless to stop their descent (“Spud”).

Some of us have grown a little worried that these early struggles from Cole Hamels and the bullpen and continued struggles of tonight’s starter Roy Halladay are indicative that another long season awaits us.  The Phillies did just allow the Royals to score 25 runs in three games, thanks in large part to relievers failing to record outs and Billy Butler grand slamming all over the place.

But, in the “single digit” range of the season, one can still make the claim that it is in fact too early to be making any judgment about the fate of this team.  Take Charlie Manuel, Phillies manager and Michael Young fan.  He’s cool as a cucumber, and he had a front row seat to that first home series.  The one that was terrible.

"“It goes that way sometimes.  We’re going to be all right.”—Charlie Manuel"

It’s not too late for anything yet, so Charlie’s of the right mindset.  It’s just a matter of convincing ourselves he’s not going to take 80-90 games to make a necessary change.  And he might not.  But he might.

It has not been fun to watch the six-year contract extension lose two straight starts, or the most flawed facet of the 2012 team get shaken up and perform just as poorly, and it is exceptionally easy to envision this kind of baseball still being played months from now, as we only recently escaped from last year, when that exactly was the case.