Gabe Kapler still seems to be learning the hard way at times with Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies sophomore manager, armed with a much more talented team this season, still seems to be searching for answers as he is second-guessed at every turn.

Even as his Philadelphia Phillies had turned things around to win four games in a row prior to Sunday’s loss to the Cincinnati Reds, it was another less than stellar week for skipper Gabe Kapler.

Let’s think back to last year when things started so poorly for Kapler on a season-opening road trip that he was loudly booed at the team’s home opener.

But the rookie manager showed a willingness to adapt his style and a personable nature that seemed to motivate his team and get fans on board, and so he began to receive some positive attention for the job that he was doing.

Yet, the 2018 Phillies season came crashing down over its last two months, leading to even more widespread questioning of Kapler’s ability to helm this particular team or even hold a major league managerial job at all.

The simple fact of the matter is that last year’s Phillies weren’t very good at all, and Kapler probably got as much out of the team as he could have reasonably been expected.

Even an objectively “great” manager, whatever that is, wouldn’t have been able to tack on more than a handful of wins that would have made no difference in the team’s final standing.

In other words, it was difficult to evaluate Kapler in 2018.

Going into this season, Kapler was given a ton of new talent to work with, but with it came added pressure. It’s fair to say that the expectation was that he could largely leave the lineup alone if everyone was doing their job at the plate, and that he had to avoid the pitfalls of “over-managing” his pitching staff.

Things haven’t end up being so simple, of course, as complications like the Odubel Herrera situation and a growing injury list that approaches what can only be described as “near Philadelphia 76ers level” have made Kapler have to do more actual managing.

The results are worrisome.

After being completely outmaneuvered by Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers as the Phillies got swept in L.A., Kapler took his team to San Diego, where disaster struck in the first inning of the series when Andrew McCutchen tore his ACL on a bizarre double play after Jean Segura didn’t run out a popup.

Unfortunately, the game ended in an ugly 8-2 loss.

And although the Phillies recovered to win the next two games against the San Diego Padres, the damage (both physically to McCutchen and to Kapler’s reputation) was done. By seemingly glossing over the entire situation and not holding Segura accountable in any way on the play, Kapler was loudly criticized.

Things came to a head on Friday as Kapler spoke to WIP’s Angelo Cataldi about the situation. And although Cataldi’s argument about Segura’s lack of hustle leading directly to McCutchen’s injury was oversimplified, it was nevertheless frustrating to hear Kapler say that it is “absolutely irresponsible” to fault Segura for the injury.

Nobody should have expected Kapler to throw one of his players under the bus and do the unthinkable by blaming said player for a teammate’s injury.

But the degree to which Kapler is in denial about the situation should rightly set off alarm bells for many. Perhaps Kapler did have a frank conversation with Segura behind the scenes, but won’t acknowledge it publicly because he wants to shield his player.

It wouldn’t be surprising if that were the case.

Still, the fact that there seemed to be absolutely no consequences here makes it look like Kapler has no control over the clubhouse, and the lack of accountability, if it continues, is going to ruin him in the end.

Even Charlie Manuel, widely acknowledged as a big-time “player’s manager” would call out his players for lack of hustle, and he wasn’t afraid to adjust their playing time accordingly.

Now, maybe this was just a case of Charlie having been around the block and acting like Morgan Freeman at his character’s last parole hearing in The Shawshank Redemption while Kapler isn’t far enough removed from this generation of players to manage in such a fashion.

But it’s plain to see that whatever Kapler’s motivational tactics, they aren’t maxing out this team’s potential at the moment.

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Throw in some questionable moves like lifting Nick Pivetta from a scoreless game last Sunday in Los Angeles and even the recent decision to take out Aaron Nola in favor of the shaky Jose Alvarez, and some new controversy about Kapler seems to pop up at every turn.

The Phillies can’t win every game, but on Sunday they had a 3-1 lead in the seventh inning at home with their ace on the mound and they lost. That can’t happen.

Interestingly, the biggest takeaway from Sunday’s loss was probably Bryce Harper‘s failed attempt to steal home, one that Kapler actually did address with his player, saying, “I spoke to Bryce about that. He has been very aggressive on the bases as you guys have seen and he’s won some games for us with his aggressive base running. He and I spoke about it and he understands that that was a little overaggressive.”

Is this acknowledgement of speaking to Harper a step in the right direction, or is it Kapler just being opportunistic as he tries to show his critics that he does hold his players accountable?

It’s frankly amazing that they still hold a one-game lead in the division, although the hard-charging Atlanta Braves figure to fight them the rest of the way for it.

Maybe the Phillies have enough talent, even with all of this dysfunction, to win the NL East this season. But Kapler’s long-term prognosis to competently lead this team doesn’t look very good right now.