Philadelphia Phillies: Decision to Leave Roy Halladay in Game Vintage Manuel

The Phillies needed two outs. Six pitches. More whiffs at the ball than cracks. More leather than grass.

And there Roy Halladay stood, the expressionless express to a win.

That’s who the fans saw. Who Charlie Manuel saw.

Or what came into focus behind his blurred lens.

Turns out, Halladay (15-5, 2.62 ERA) had no business in the game: He entered that frame with six ninth innings under his belt, one for each of his previous complete games. At the time—when Manuel could’ve consulted stat geeks—Halladay had a 7.94 ERA with a .444 opponent batting average.

In comparison, Halladay has a 1.63 ERA with a .131 opponent BA in 2011 eighth innings.

But Manuel played this one by his script, letting Halladay finish what he started, elbow his way out of his own hole—Justin Upton and Miguel Montero singles put runners on first and second. The call was vintage Manuel.

And you figured Lyle Overbay was all-but-over easy. Done like breakfast-for-dinner. You found assurance in Halladay’s confidence: He seemed fine. (After July 18, we know what it looks like when he’s not.) and Manuel didn’t blink.

Sometimes that works—it let slumping Raul Ibanez and Jimmy Rollins turn it around. Sometimes it burns—can you say “Ross Gload in NLCS Game 6”? Last night proved one of the latter. Overbay drove in the two go-ahead runs in an eventual 3-2 loss—only 1-of-48, but one that didn’t need to be.

I know: Second-guessing Manuel rings of Monday morning quarterbacking. But it’s a fair question.

Did Charlie’s trust betray him? Halladay? The Phillies?

Us?

Granted, the numbers push back too: That hitters go only .155 with two outs and runners in scoring position doesn’t technically apply, but speaks to Halladay’s presumed handle. If that’s not enough, his 52-0 record with leads going into ninth innings should be.

When the moment beams, Halladay buckles down.

But that’s assuming Manuel saw those pages. Stats like those probably go as unappreciated in Philly as Ryan Howard elsewhere. In all likelihood, the decision was premeditated, circumstances and consequences be damned.

“That’s my ace,” Manuel said of Halladay. “That’s kind of the way I looked at it. If I was going to make a change, how come I didn’t make one at the start of the inning?”

The question now is whether he should’ve.

Listen: I defer to World Series rings (Manuel won his in 2008), and despise when skippers over-manage.

But if Manuel’s approach is so laissez-faire you wonder if he has hands to keep off, you wonder whether a little intervention could help.

Whether Manuel should rely only on intuition.

Whether he should lean on innovation.

Maybe not. Maybe pushing the world of advanced sabermetrics would overwhelm him. Confuse him. Precipitate more bad decisions than they prevented.

Sure, he could outsource that analysis. Bring in a bespectacled assistant. Sensible as it sounds—at least have the advice; whether or not you take it—that doesn’t seem likely. (Or at all like Manuel.) But we can dream.

More likely is more of the same. Call it stubbornness or closed-mindedness, or genius, but Manuel’s not changing—that shifts responsibility to his players.

The Phillies have to adapt to Manuel.

Halladay should recognize when he’s vulnerable, throw up his hand, pull himself out. That goes for everyone: For Cole Hamels, whose arm died before he could wave himself off.

No one’s asking him to them the books on it. But Halladay needs to acknowledge his 24-out shelf life, the rest of them their deficiencies. They know it. They feel it—same as Brett Favre used to.

On Halladay: Whether he ignored it like Favre, muscling through and pulling his teams down, we’ll never know. And whether we can blast Doc Halladay like Mr. Hattiesburg is a separate conversation.

But he’s got to understand: these calls, on this team, aren’t the manager’s.

They’re theirs.

This isn’t double jeopardy. We’re past Halladay’s lashing.

But what if Manuel, Halladay or both cost the Phillies in the postseason? What if a decisive October game boils down to a predestined move?

What then?

You wonder whether there is a right move. Whether the end washed any preceding means.

You wonder whether it was Halladay. Talk about a highbrow. A near-perfect tandem of 31-for-33 saves or not, does that pass the “say it out loud” test? How do you swap a multiple Cy Young winner and perfect gamer for Ryan Madson or Antonio Bastardo?

The answer is simple: You deal. Live with it. With Manuel, and his flaws. Like sitcom humor from How I Met Your Mother. Accept Manuel, like you do Andy Reid and his game (mis)managing and Sunday (mis)adjustments.

But just how judgment knells for Reid, it has to with Manuel. Both bought mulligans with long-lived success, so long as the wins pile higher.

Should the headaches pound harder, though, if the Phillies prove an early out in October, wasting one year of a four-pane window of winning, you have to wonder:

Is Charlie being Charlie enough?

Read more Philadelphia Phillies news on BleacherReport.com