Wait… didn’t the Phillies just sweep the Mets at Shea?
It didn’t take Johnny Sain or Kreskin to figure out something was wrong with Freddy Garcia last night in Kansas City. From the first pitch it appeared as if Garcia, the Phillies’ big off-season acquisition, was even more out of sorts than usual. His pacing around the mound looked much more deliberate and his pace slowed from its normal pedestrian rate to a crawl.
Instead of using an hour glass to time Garcia’s sauntering between pitches, the league shifted to a sundial.
But more than Garcia’s unhurried work, the most telling part of the short, five outs outing against the lowly Kansas City Royals was the big pitcher’s velocity. Instead of topping the 90-mph mark, Garcia struggled to throw his fastball in the mid-80s. He would have had difficulty breaking a pane of glass with his heater.
Jamie Moyer could have thrown a fastball with more alacrity.
“When I took him out of the game, I walked him downstairs and started talking to him,” manager Charlie Manuel said. “I asked him his shoulder. I told him if he's hurt, I don't want him pitching. I told him, ‘The way you're throwing, it definitely looks like to me that you're hurt.’ He's a mentally tough guy and wants to pitch, but at the same time -- then he told me his shoulder was sore.”
So here we go again. Suddenly the team’s big off-season pick-up appears to be injured again. Though Garcia won’t be examined until Monday in Philadelphia -- coincidentally when his former team the Chicago White Sox turn up at the Bank -- another trip to the disabled list appears inevitable.
“I told him, basically, I do not want somebody who is hurt pitching,” Manuel said. “I want you pitching 100 percent. If there is anything wrong with you, I have to know it. He wanted to talk about it. He was upset because his performance wasn't good. We'll check him out and see what's wrong with him.”
Said Garcia: “Monday I'll check it out and see what's going on with my shoulder. I've got to stop pitching. I don't want to pitch the way I've been pitching. If it is not 100 percent in my shoulder, there's nothing I can do.”
If you are scoring at home, that’s pitchers Garcia, Brett Myers and Tom Gordon out with shoulder ailments. In the minors, pitchers Kyle Drabek, Joe Bisenius and J.A. Happ are all on the disabled list.
What the… ?
With Garcia likely headed to the disabled list for the second time before the season has come close to reaching the halfway point, the question seems to be when was the pitcher hurt and didn’t he have a physical before the trade with the White Sox?
Whatever the answers are, it appears as if Andy Ashby’s short time with the Phillies in 2000 will be better than Garcia’s in 2007.
***
So with Garcia headed out what do the Phillies do? Why sign Jose Mesa to a minor league deal, of course.
The Phillies won’t confirm it, but everyone seems to know that the club’s all-time saves leader is making his big comeback to Philadelphia and should join the club in Kansas City.
Needless to say, most fans aren’t too pleased about Mesa’s prodigal return to one of his old teams, but whatever. If he can pitch a little bit, and he was decent in 79 games for the Rockies last year, it’s a good move. If he continues to pitch like he did for the Tigers in 16 appearances this season (12.34 ERA), release him.
No big whoop.
***
Speaking of no big whoop, general manager Pat Gillick reiterated that he is not leaving the Phillies to become the president of the Seattle Mariners.
***
Remember how we wrote yesterday that it seems as if the Mets’ Paul Lo Duca is a jerk? Well, apparently Cole Hamels thinks so, too. Hamels, according to the story in the Wilmington News Journal says Lo Duca acted like an amateur after his sixth-inning home run on Thursday night.
“You need to act like you've done it before,” Hamels told bulldog scribe Scott Lauber. “He's a veteran. He should know better. It's the old sacred game thing. There are little kids out there that are looking up to you. They look at what happens. That's not the right way to do things.”
Then again, Lo Duca appears to have a history of doing things the wrong way.