If Craig Kimbrel Has A Shred Of Integrity, He'll Never Throw Another Baseball Ever Again
Sean M. Haffey. Getty Images.Throughout the history of the Philadelphia Phillies, there have been plenty of awful performances. I mean this franchise has missed the playoffs over 100 times. There have been awful players on awful teams with awful moments.
Nothing has been more pathetic than the shit we've seen from Craig Kimbrel over the past 48 hours.
Just talk about a guy who can't give you a single goddamn thing right now. There's only one human being on planet Earth right now who somehow seems to have any sort of faith the moment Craig Kimbrel picks up a ball on the bump. Unfortunately, that human is in charge of the whole damn team and he's clearly losing his goddamn mind--Rob Thomson. I genuinely don't know who I'm more disgusted with after that loss tonight between Kimbrel or Topper.
Craig Kimbrel has been washed for years. He's an absolute lunatic up there who can't find the strike zone, can't hold runners on base, and has a complete meltdown the moment anyone gets on 2nd. He looked like shit as he blew game 3, so you'd figure that maybe for once in his life, Rob Thomson wouldn't let his blind loyalty be his total downfall tonight. You'd figure that maybe he'd finally make a big boy decision and tell Kimbrel to keep his hoodie on in the dugout tonight. But no. Rob Thomson refuses to ever make the tough call. He refuses to ever tell someone that maybe they just don't have it that night. So he trots Craig Kimbrel out there with a 5-3 lead in the 8th as if it wasn't going to be a complete disaster.
Again, I can assure you that literally everybody else in the world knew it was going to be a disaster. I can double assure you that the Diamondback hitters have never been filled with more confidence than when they saw Kimbrel come out of the bullpen. Fucking Alek Thomas, man. The biggest at-bat in his life, and the Phillies couldn't inject even a drop of fear into him by throwing someone like Alvarado his way. These guys knew that literally all they had to do was stand there in the batter's box and they'd at least get on base. Down by 2 in the bottom of the 8th and it was probably the lowest pressure moment they felt all night.
So at the end of the day, this is on Rob Thomson. But like I said, he's loyal to a fault. And it's finally fucking the Phillies, but that's just the way it is. So the only way to make sure he never throws Kimbrel out there again is if Kimbrel just takes himself out of the game. If he had a shred of honor and integrity, he'd retire right now. Hang 'em up. You had a great career, but you just don't have it anymore. You need to get as far away from this team as possible to make sure Topper doesn't put you back out there again. Unbelievable.
P.S. -- Rob Thomson is going to completely destroy Kerkering if he uses him again this postseason. Again, the situation is way too big for him right now and he gave us all he had already.
P.P.S. -- Even if they drop tomorrow night's game, the Phillies can still win 2 games at the Bank and go back to the World Series. But yesterday's game was a "okay, they can't be perfect every night" type of game. Tonight was the type of loss that really makes you wonder if this team actually ever had it in the first place.