PITTSBURGH – After the game on Wednesday night, Matt Stairs was talking to Ryan Howard about rituals to help him snap out of his hitting slump. At that point Stairs had grounded out with two outs and the bases loaded during the ninth inning of the extra-inning victory over the Pirates, so the banter was light, funny and bawdy.
Besides, are there better ways to deal with the ups and downs of a baseball season with a little self-deprecation? That’s especially the case when the banter was with the hottest hitter on the team, who had just nearly knocked one into the Allegheny River.
Plus, Howard knows a little something about hitting skids, too. It’s baseball – no one is immune.
Stairs was full of jokes after Wednesday’s game, but not on Thursday when his ninth-inning strikeout with one on and one out helped seal the Phillies’ fate in the one-run loss to the Pirates.
That one wasn’t so funny. A glance at Stairs sitting by himself and staring into an empty locker at PNC Park that had been cleaned out and packed up for the short flight back to Philadelphia appeared to reveal a ballplayer trying to come to grips with a woeful hitting slump.
Stairs is riding a 0-for-25 skid, which is much different than the 0-for-28 Jimmy Rollins had in late June and early July. Because Rollins is an everyday player, his skid lasted about a week. One week out of the 26 in the regular season is pretty insignificant in the scheme of things.
But Stairs is Charlie Manuel’s top lefty pinch hitter and biggest home run threat off the bench. Because he doesn’t get four or five plate appearances a night – more like four or five a week – a 0-for-25 is more like sinking in quick sand than it is an avalanche. As a result, Stairs last got a hit on July 11 when he homered against the Pirates at the Bank. He only has one hit since June 28 and is 1-for-33 to help his batting average dip from .296 to an even .200.
Since July 11, Stairs has had three starts and 11 plate appearances in the ninth or 10th innings, meaning Manuel uses him almost exclusively when the game is on the line. In that sense it’s as if the Phils are asking him to walk across a tightrope without a net to catch him if he falls.
Nevertheless, Stairs hasn’t complained or even been upset about his role. He actually enjoys pinch hitting and hitting in high-pressure situations. Sure, he says he needs to get more at-bats in order to shake out of his skid, but he knows that isn’t going to happen.
So instead Stairs just bides his time, takes batting practice and goes about his business just as he has for the 17 seasons in the big leagues. He also continues to impress during batting practice, too. In fact, Stairs lets it be known that he tries to hit the ball out of the park every time he has a bat in his hands. Though he came up empty in the ninth the past two nights, it was pretty cool to watch Stairs bounce a few into the river just beyond the right-field porch.
“I can still hit,” Stairs said. “I think when I step into the batter's box, I'm still a threat.”
The lack of plate appearances, however, is a legitimate beef – one that Stairs won’t make. Throughout his career the lefty slugger averages 540 plate appearances per 162 games and since becoming a full-time Major Leaguer in 1997, Stairs has never had fewer than 226 plate appearances in a season.
This year, in 78 games, Stairs has just 106 plate appearances. The only way he can top his all-time low in plate appearances this year is if he gets four trips to the plate in every game for the rest of the season.
“I love pinch hitting, but it’s tough,” he said.
The good part is Stairs is on a winning team and should be headed to the playoffs for the fourth time in his career. At this stage of his career, winning supersedes the lack of playing time
“If we had been losing and I had been as bad as I have, it would be tougher,” he said. “It wears on you. But I laugh about it and I hear some jokes.”
There has been some talk about the possibility of Stairs wearing a non-baseball type of underwear beneath his uniform to help bust out of his slump, and the pitchers are merciless. Aside from newcomer Pedro Martinez, all the starting pitchers have more hits than the veteran since June 28.
By this point, Stairs can tell you how many each guys has, too.
But in his short Phillies’ career, it’s been the quality, not the quantity of the hits. On April 12 his two-run homer in the ninth won a game in Colorado and his last hit was a game-winning homer, too.
And, of course, everyone remembers that eighth-inning homer at Dodger Stadium last October in Game 4 of the NLCS that helped put the Phillies in the World Series. It’s a hit that will arguably go down as the most important pinch hit in franchise history.
“Hopefully there will be some big hits at the end (of this year),” Stairs said.
Then again, Stairs is used to having to overcome one thing or another. After all, a guy doesn’t become the most prolific journeyman home run hitter ever, and could have been a Hall-of-Famer had he not broke into pro ball as a second baseman.
Next: One more from Pittsburgh on the city and Roberto Clemente.