Crank up the time machine for a moment and contemplate this scenario for a moment:
Let’s say it’s 2009 again and the Phillies are headed to the World Series to play the Yankees. Rather than make things too complicated, let’s just say everything has remained the same. Instead of Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt, the Phillies still have Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez. Otherwise, everything else is the same except for Pedro Feliz is the third baseman and Placido Polanco still is in Detroit.
Not imagine if the Phillies went against the Yankees with Cole Hamels and his new-found focus and maturation and Brad Lidge with his current Zen-like feeling of healthiness and effectiveness.
If we could put the 2010 version of Hamels and Lidge in the time machine and go back to last year’s World Series, does anyone think the Yankees still win? Does anyone think it lasts six games?
This little exercise is just for us, though. After all ballplayers don’t think about time machines or what could have been. In Major League Baseball, a player is only as good as his last swing or his last pitch. In other words, there’s no sense worrying about what happened in 2009 when a ballclub as good as the Phillies is tearing through the NL East in 2010.
Living in the now, as they say, Lidge paused ever-so slightly to ponder the idea of transporting his current pitching ability to last October. That’s what polite people do even when they are trying to be diplomatic. However, based on how well Hamels and Lidge performed during the 3-1 victory over the Braves in the first game of the September showdown between the NL East frontrunners, the Phillies’ chances look pretty good going forward.
“I don’t know if I would say I’m different,” Lidge answered when asked the difference between last September and this September. “I would say I’m healthy and because I’m healthy, my control is better. Because my control is better, my confidence is better.”
And because Lidge has that confidence the 2010 Phillies just might be the best team Lidge has ever pitched for.
“If I played on a better team than this I don’t know who it would be,” he said. “In a roundabout way I guess I’d say this is as good a team as I have ever been on.”
Lidge has played a pretty significant part in the team’s success, too. Interestingly, it seems as if he has quietly slipped out of the spotlight, too. Last year, on the heels of his epic, 48-for-48 saves season which culminated with the closer dropping to his knees on the grass in front of the pitchers’ mound after dusting Eric Hinske with a light-s out slider, Lidge went the other way in 2009. In fact, if there were two seasons more diametrically opposed that Lidge’s first two seasons with the Phillies by any other player in baseball history, then report that guy to the circus.
In 2009 Lidge had the worst season in baseball history by a pitcher who recorded at least 20 saves. In that regard, the thoughtful righty notched 31 saves in 42 chances to go with a 7.21 ERA. He also led the league in cortisone shots and after an appearance in Game 3 of the World Series where they Yankees rallied against him in the ninth inning to take a 3-1 lead in the series, Lidge went back under the knife during the off-season.
Blown saves, shots, surgeries and foolhardy contract extensions are what people mentioned when Lidge’s name was bandied about.
But these days no one really even talks about Lidge much at all. Even after taunting the Braves with his devastating slider for two strikeouts in a perfect ninth to notch his 24th save in 29 chances, Lidge smiled when told that he was quietly having a solid season. Then again, his is the type of job that people only talk about when it isn’t going well. When a closer has a season like the one Lidge is wrapping up behind a trio of ace pitchers like Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Hamels, relative anonymity can provide calming reassurance.
“I had two surgeries and the one I had for my knee it got better right away. The one I had on my elbow it just took longer. There was more scar tissue and it took longer to get the muscles working around that,” Lidge explained. “Fortunately, it has. Better late than never, but obviously, if I’m feeling good at the end of the year that’s where I want to be.”
Still, things were just so… bad. Not just bad, but frustratingly ugly bad where every single out recorded was a war.
“It was frustrating because I was expecting to have that feeling a lot sooner than I did,” Lidge said. “I was working hard on my rehab and figuring it has to come back eventually. Then all of sudden it would come back and then things would swell up again and I’d go get another shot. But fortunately your arm gets into the rhythm of the season again. It was like I was having interrupted spring training for a long time.”
But since the All-Star Break, Lidge has converted on 18 of 20 save chances and after giving up a walk-off homer to Ryan Zimmerman in Washington on July 31, Lidge has gone 14 of 15 in save opportunities, allowing just two earned runs in 19 2/3 innings. During that span he has allowed six walks—three of those in one game—with 22 strikeouts with just eight hits.
Better yet, he’s regained numbers similar to his 2008 season by making some big adjustments… or maybe just reverted back to a familiar pitch.
In ’08, Lidge threw his fastball only 43 percent of the time, opting mostly to go with his slider on 56 percent of his pitches. Actually, those two pitches were enough, considering the fastball barreled in around 94-95 mph and the slider had the look of a changeup until it dived off the table.
But in 2009, Lidge threw his fastball more than half of the time, often using it interchangeably with his best pitch. Hitters battered him at a .306 clip as his strikeouts per nine innings dropped to an all-time low.
So partially out of necessity, mixed with ability, Lidge made big adjustments. Like in 2008, he’s relied more on the slider this season, throwing it at a rate of nearly 60 percent. Meanwhile, his fastball rarely lights it up over 92-mph these days, which means he has to be that much more cognizant of his command.
Still, the metamorphosis is simply the mark more of a guy who gets it as it is someone understanding his health, body and abilities.
“I think the adjustment part, for sure, I can relate to. My adjustment was trying to get out there healthy. I feel like when I am, and I know what I can do but we had to take the steps to make sure I was healthy first,” Lidge explained. “I missed the first two months of this year, and the next two months were back and forth and getting cortisone shots here and there. But then, all of a sudden, you’re arm gets into the rhythm and back into the groove and you’re back into it.”
Around the All-Star Break is when Lidge started feeling better, then he started throwing better. Soon, without much fanfare, things started falling back into place.
“I felt that way in July but I was throwing inconsistently. Toward the end of the month I was throwing better and I know for the last two months when August rolled around I was healthy and knew I was going to start throwing good,” he said. “I just needed to get chances and fortunately I got to in August and that really helped.”
The results have been somewhat similar to the way they were in ’08. Opponents his .204 against him two years ago, compared to .205 this season. He walked 4.54 per nine innings in ’08 and exactly that same rate so far through 2010. Strangely enough, Lidge’s WHIP in 2008 and 2010 are the same at 1.23.
Is he back?
Just as strange as the rollercoaster ride of emotions and statistics, so too is the notion that Lidge has regained his form. Is it too early to tell, or have folks still not accepted the reality of the past two months of performances?
That’s one to ponder. In the meantime, jump back in that time machine and plop Lidge into some historical perspective….
For instance, Lidge has saved 30 games in four of his six full seasons with two years where he got more than 40 saves. Comparably, Goose Gossage only got 30 saves in a season twice. The same goes for Rollie Fingers. Bruce Sutter, the other closer in the Hall of Fame, notched four 30-plus saves seasons just like Lidge.
Of course, 30 saves doesn’t mean what it did in the old days. In fact, of the five closers in the Hall of Fame—Gossage, Sutter, Fingers, Dennis Eckersley and Hoyt Wilhelm—only one has put together more 30-plus saves seasons than Lidge. Certainly that will change when guys like Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman get in the Hall, but if he were able to get into a time machine and transport his stats to the 1970s and early ‘80s, Lidge would be on the path to a Hall-of-Fame career.
For what it’s worth, he’s prefer a path back to the World Series for now.
“It’s been a fun year,” Lidge said. “The last couple of months have been going really well for the bullpen, and if our starters keep going eight innings we’re going to be looking really good—everyone is going to be well rested down there.”