Phillies: Larry Bowa says baseball needs to win fans back
The pandemic and baseball
Bowa began managing the Phillies in 2001, his third season in the role overall having been with the San Diego Padres in 1987 and parts of the 1988 season.
The Phillies and Bowa were 143 games into the 2001 campaign before the tragic events of September 11 of that year. The 74-year-old calls those events “devastating,” but that once things “cleared up to some extent,” that baseball would resume.
“But, this thing here is not cleared up right now. And that makes it really tough right now because nobody knows who this thing attacks, what it attacks,” Bowa says. “The symptoms are all different on different people. Some old people get through it, some young people have been getting hit by it.”
“So, it makes it a little more difficult. There doesn’t seem to be any signs of it completely going away right now.”
Earlier this month, the Phillies were the first team in Major League Baseball to report a COVID positive case. As of currently, they have 12 such cases — six players and five staff that had been using their Clearwater, Florida, training facilities. There was also another COVID-positive player that had not been in the area. None were hospitalized.
Bowa says both September 11th and the current pandemic are “devastating,” but cannot say one is worse than the other: “What happened in New York on 9/11 was terrible. What’s happening now with the virus is terrible. People lost a lot of lives; relatives are in mourning.”
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Players must ‘self-discipline’
Phillies manager Joe Girardi recently said on MLB Network that the sports industry has a “huge responsibility” to assure things are done the right way, that they protect each other, and that the guidelines are followed.
Bowa has confidence the virus can be controlled on the field, but before and after, there will be some difficulty and that the players will have to “self-discipline.”
“It’s after the game is over and somebody goes out for dinner, or somebody goes to the bar to have a drink,” he says. “Maybe the place they went to they have not paid attention to the rules, and things like that. That’s how this thing starts to multiply.”
“Hopefully the virus does not affect our teams, but I don’t see how it’s going to skip baseball players,” Bowa continues. “It’s hitting everybody else, so we have to keep our fingers crossed and hope nobody gets a real serious part of the virus.”
“The guys are mostly young players and their immune systems are a lot better than a lot of other people, so keep our fingers crossed for the health of the players.”
Looking ahead to the now-agreed 2020 season
Bowa hopes that now a 2020 season is slated to begin in less than one month, that hopefully it can “ease the pain a little bit.”
The new season will be unlike nothing baseball fans have ever seen before. A 102-game decrease from the usual 162 games, the universal designated hitter, empty stands in the ballpark, you name it.
For Bowa, 60 games are “better than nothing.”
“This is going to be strange, though. It’s going to be a sprint rather than a long race,” he says. “We’ll see how it plays out. Spring training starts [soon] … so, that’s going to be about three weeks, and we’ll see how it plays out.”
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Strength of bullpen will be key
Bowa says that teams that have the best bullpens this coming season will make the playoffs, as games will be “bullpen games” with starting pitchers not being fully extended out.
“The team that has the best bullpen and can stay away from injuries or the virus, if you can keep guys off that, then they have a good chance of winning,” Bowa says. “I look at bullpen strength and I think whoever has the best bullpens right now would have a good chance getting in the playoffs.”
For the Phillies, Hector Neris will likely be featured as the closer again, complemented by southpaws Jose Alvarez and Adam Morgan, as well as right-handers Victor Arano and Tommy Hunter, among others. Also, starting pitchers who lose out on the competition for the fifth starting rotation spot will likely still make the team as a long reliever role.
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“Starting pitchers, less face it. It doesn’t matter how much they’ve been throwing since the end of spring training [in March],” Bowa says. “When you get a hitter in that batter’s box, the adrenaline is different and the umpire back there.”
“You got to hope guys don’t try to overdo it and throw too hard real early. I don’t think they’re going to go deep in games early.”
Unlike starting pitchers, Bowa thinks hitters will have no problem to get ready in the three weeks of “spring training 2” that lead up to Opening Day on July 24.
Difficulty of playing with no fans in the stands
Bowa says Phillies players will have some challenges to overcome as it relates to playing games without fans in the stands.
“Fans get players pumped up. There’s a lot of games you start when you have the stands filled, you don’t feel good or you have something that’s bothering you,” Bowa says, “and then, all of a sudden, the other team has the bases loaded and you make a double play and you hear the fans go crazy. That’s important.”
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Bowa adds that players frequently rely on adrenaline: “A guy comes in the ninth inning, you’re down a run and the closer for the other team walks the guy on four pitches. Everybody gets up and starts screaming and yelling.”
“That’s going to be non-existent; at least at the beginning of this thing. It’s going to be interesting to see how players react to that.”
Rule Changes
To some surprise, Bowa is not necessarily opposed to the designated hitter, despite calling himself “definitely old school.”
“The more I watched baseball the last five years,” he says, “I see pitchers get hurt. Not throwing on the mound, [but] running the bases, getting hit by a pitch, squaring around to bunt, breaking a finger, sliding head-first.”
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“So, I’m changing my thought process there. I’m going to starting thinking it would be better for baseball if we have the DH.”
Bowa says he also is in favor of the new rule that says pitchers must either finish a half-inning or face at least three batters before being replaced. He noted last September, when teams, like the Phillies, would seemingly promote all of their left-handed relievers to come into games against left-handed batters, and vice-versa.
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As far as the “man on second” rule for extra-inning games, Bowa is not as much a fan: “I understand their thought process … you don’t want 16 or 17-inning games. You’re going to go through the pitching staff,” he says. “I’m not saying I like it, but I can understand it for this short sprint they’re going to do for these 60 games.”
“I personally don’t think it will go into play next year, but that’s for them to decide.”
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Bowa noted one player the Phillies could utilize in particular for this new rule: speedy outfielder Roman Quinn.
“If you don’t deplete your bench and you have a speedster over there, a [Billy] Hamilton, or in our situation, Quinn. You might say ‘I’m putting him in for whoever made the last out’ and try to steal a run there,” he says.
Relationship with Harper
Bowa says Phillies star outfielder Bryce Harper “impressed the heck” out of him in his first season in red pinstripes last year.
“I get along good with him. I can tell you, every game that I watched him last year, I watched every home game, this guy gave 100 percent every single time he took the field,” Bowa says. “That impressed the heck out of me.”
While Bowa says the six-time All-Star started the season out slow, he understands there is a lot of pressure that was put on him, coming to a new team and getting his then-record-breaking contract.
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“Then he turned it up a notch the second half. I think he really likes playing here in Philadelphia,” Bowa says. “He talked about how the fans got him going every single game.”
“Now, he’s going to come out and there won’t be any fans. It’s going to be interesting to see how he reacts to that.”
Bowa says he thinks Harper did a “tremendous job” last year, that he really likes the way he approaches the game, and that before his career is over, he believes Harper will “put up some big numbers in Philly.”
Phillies’ chances this year
Bowa says that at the time “spring training 1” broke, he thinks the Phillies were playing “good fundamental baseball.”
“I was really upset when we broke camp way early because of the virus, because I was looking forward to us getting out of the gate good,” Bowa says. “It’s going to be important to get out of the gate good when you have 60 games.”
“Say the first 10 games you’re 2-8, you basically buried yourself pretty early. It’s going to be important to stay away from losing streaks in this short season”
At 14 wins and 5 losses, the Phillies had the best record in all of baseball across Grapefruit and Cactus league play.
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Bowa says he doesn’t really look at either column, but that he just likes the way the team gelled together: “Joe Girardi did a good job. I like Bryan Price as our pitching coach, [too].”
Could top prospects RHP Spencer Howard and third baseman Alec Bohm make the Opening Day roster under the new circumstances? Bowa did not rule them out.
“We have a pitcher named Howard that they were going to watch his innings, but now with 60 games left, they might have him in the rotation or maybe just in the bullpen,” Bowa says. “Alec Bohm is another guy you have to keep your eye on. He might, with 60 games, he could very easily make this team.”
“That’s going to be up to the front office.”