As I write this post, I'm wearing a shirt I got as a giveaway at the Phillies' second home game last year, which they billed as "Opening Night." It was probably the most-frustrating Phillies loss I've ever seen in person. My girlfriend and I got standing-room tickets (I almost said seats here) and were treated to the spectacle of Hamels holding the Nats to 1 run over eight innings, only to be outdueled by, of all people, Tim Redding. The Phillies only got 1 hit that night. Lost amid this recounting is my best memory of that game, in which JC Romero came in with 1 out and runners on base in the ninth, then induced a double play with 1 pitch, getting Cole off the hook and giving the Phillies new life heading into the bottom of the ninth, down by a run.
I remember turning to the guy next to me, who was also turning to me. We both had 1 finger up, as if to tell each other "1 pitch!" We high-fived instead, and I noticed that my girlfriend had made eye contact with his girlfriend, and the pair of them were looking at us like we were crazy. "Jesus Christ Romero," this guy announced, "has just saved my soul." It was pretty incredible. Far and away the best thing that happened all night.
Romero has been exactly that over his time here, a saver of souls, if not games. As fans, we worry about things. Pitch counts, motivation, talent or lack thereof, the psychological makeup of people we will never meet. We obsess, a little. Over my years as a Phillies' fan, I have probably worried about the bullpen more than anything else, have fantasized about Jose Mesa and Rheal Cormier being taken to the woodshed by a guy named Vito, have wished Wayne Gomes would go on a diet, have wanted to kill Mitch Williams... you get the point.
The real difference between this year's team and the team that was bounced in Colorado was the bullpen. I remember listening to WIP two years ago, when Eskin was hosting a contest to nickname the bullpen, as a way to perhaps breathe some life into Mesa, Alfonseca et al. While I didn't partake in this cathartic exercise, not wishing for Eskin to rip my idea ("The Murdered Row") to pieces, it did highlight the Phillies major weakness that year. The Phillies consistently built a lead, then tried to weather the storm for nine outs or so, trying to outrun the inevitab meltdown on the road to Myers' uncertain relief. Even if they'd swung the bats against Colorado, this was not a team built for success in the playoffs.
Romero, even then, was the only reliever you felt confident with that whole year, and he was even better last year. Since he's been in the bullpen, the Phillies have had a soothing constant, a guy they could rely on. While the Phillies have addressed the bullpen, while he is no longer the lynchpin, he was absolutely crucial to the dominance of the bullpen in the playoffs last year, second only to Lidge. He was Pepto Bismol.
There are, as I said, things it is normal to worry about with bullpens, things that just come with the territory. But this? This 50-game suspension, handed down inflexibly by Selig and his goons, stands as an absurd example of corporate thinking run amok. The story, if you haven't heard, goes as follows: some time last year, Romero bought an over the counter supplement called 6-OXO Extreme from the GNC in Cherry Hill, looked on the label, found no ingredient that was banned by baseball, and took the supplement. Sometime later, Romero was tested for steroids, and it was discovered that his urine contained trace amounts of androstenedione, a banned steroid. Since this test occurred before the World Series, and the powers that be MLB did not want a player with a positive drug test in the Series, a deal was offered, which Romero declined, to reduce the suspension to 25 games, provided they included the postseason.
There are reasons for the hard line taken by the MLB. Romero DID piss andro. Andro IS a steroid. The MLB does have a blanket policy for positive steroid tests, a policy basically foisted on Selig by Congress at the height of the era of Bushian hubris, when Congress put its nose in all manner of places where it did not belong. They do not care how the andro got there, the fact is that it is there, and must be paid for.
This is really sad. It helps no one and nothing to avoid any distinction between Bonds, Clemens, players who knowingly stuffed massive amounts of steroids into their bodies, people who will need some luck to avoid ending up like Ken Caminiti and Rod Beck, people who cheated both the game and themselves, and people like Romero who unwittingly took a supplement with an amount of andro so small it didn't even rate an entry under active ingredients. This is madness. An Inquirer source indicated that the amount of andro, which was again not even listed on the bottle, "was well below any level that would enhance an athlete's performance." Romero made a reasonable assumption that something as hazardous as ando would have been mentioned. It was not. And he is being punished for it.
This suspension is a HUGE, HUGE problem for the Phillies. They will need to find a way to fill the void until Romero is back, which looms as the biggest potential headache moving forward. It's notoriously hard to predict things with bullpens, but this thing could easily snowball. There seem to be some hexes hanging over the Phillies already, and this is certainly one of them.
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