Major League Baseball

Manuel calculated with Giants jabs

Published Aug. 3, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

Don’t be fooled by Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel.

He has that country boy act down pat.

The words roll together with that rural Virginia accent. He can mix and match his metaphors and similes with the best of them.

If, however, you let him lull you into a sense of security, you are in trouble.

Manuel isn’t just country cute.

He’s country tough.

As he puts it, "I want to be the last man standing.’’

And he wants his team to be the last team standing come late October.

That’s why the San Francisco Giants rub Manuel the wrong way, and he’s not afraid to say it.

It was San Francisco that knocked the Phillies off in six games in the NLCS last year, on the Giants’ way to winning a world championship that most outsiders had conceded to the Phillies before the postseason began.

And it was the Giants who slipped into Philadelphia for a three-game visit last week and rebounded from losing the series opener to win the last two games. It was the second time this season that the Phillies lost back-to-back games, and also the second time they lost a series at home. Milwaukee took two out of three back in April, winning back-to-back games April 18-19.

Big deal? You betcha.

“People who beat our team, or beat me and my team, I always want to get back and get revenge on them” Manuel said. “The playoffs will count more than the regular season, but there will be a reckoning day.”

Fresh off a sweep of Colorado at Coors Field, the NL East-leading Phillies, owners of a best-in-baseball record of 71-39, flew from Denver to San Francisco on Wednesday, eager to open a four-game series at AT&T Park on Thursday against the Giants. San Francisco snapped a five-game losing streak and regained a one-game lead over Arizona in the NL West with a win against the Diamondbacks on Wednesday afternoon.

“I think we can get ‘em, if you want to know the truth,” Manuel said on Wednesday morning. “I know we can get ‘em. It’s just a matter of us putting it together and for us to play the right way. And that’s pitch, hit and play good defense. Yeah, I think we can get ‘em.”

And rest assured Manuel isn’t the least bit concerned about providing the Giants bulletin board material.

He has a good team that got better with the trade deadline addition of Hunter Pence. The ex-Astro gives the Phillies the right-handed-hitting replacement for Jayson Werth that they had been missing in the No. 5 spot in the order. And it frees Shane Victorino to move back into the more fitting No. 2 spot.

More than that, he has a dominating pitching staff that at times is overshadowed by all the attention showered upon the Giants pitchers. During the NLCS, in fact, Manuel had a few words with his own players. He thought they were actually psyching themselves out with the way they praised the Giants staff.

And if anybody thinks Manuel had forgotten that, they’d better think again.

Asked after the three-game series last week about facing “great” pitchers like Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum, Manuel put the talk of pitching immortality on hold, at least for the time being.

“They’re good pitchers,” he said. “You say they’re great. I think as they move on in their careers, there’s the longevity part and things like that. I think that’s when the greatness might come by.”

That didn’t sit well with 27-year-old Giants right-hander Tim Lincecum, a two-time NL Cy Young winner.

“It’s probably just frustration speaking,” Lincecum told the San Francisco Chronicle. “When it comes down to it, it’s not what a person says, it’s about what goes on, on the field. … They’re not used to (losing). It might have something to do with what happened in the NLCS, too.”

It does, but it also has to do with the fact that Manuel has a hard time accepting the idea his pitching staff has to take a backseat to anybody.

“We’re pretty good off the mound,” said Manuel, who, it should be noted, didn’t use the word “great” in talking about his own staff, either. “We’ve got guys who are putting together pretty nice track records.”

And if it is numbers that make the stats guys happy, the Phillies have more than a few that make a case for their daring to be great.

The Phillies, after all, lead the National League in earned run average (3.10), ERA on the road (3.48) and ERA for the rotation (2.99). The Giants ranked second overall (3.18), third in road ERA (3.54) and second in rotation ERA (3.32).

The Giants' rotation has the two Cy Young awards won by Lincecum, but the Phillies have three — two by Roy Halladay and one by Cliff Lee.

The Phillies rotation also has six 20-win seasons on its resume — three by Halladay, one by Lee and two by Roy Oswalt, who will come off the disabled list to start Sunday’s finale against Lincecum. The Giants don’t have a 20-game winner in their current rotation.

And the Phillies have those fancy numbers despite playing half their games in the hitter-friendly environment of Citizen’s Bank Park, not the pitching haven of AT&T Park, which the Giants call home.

"I like our team," said Manuel.

It’s the Giants who rankle him.

share

Get more from Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

Major League Baseball