Ryne Sandberg Won’t Go Winless as Phillies Manager
Ryne Sandberg’s first win as a major league manager came with some help from the opposition.
Carlos Ruiz had four hits and the Philadelphia Phillies benefited from two ninth-inning errors by shortstop Hanley Ramirez to beat the Dodgers 3-2 on Sunday, giving Sandberg his first victory and ending Los Angeles’ 10-game winning streak.
Sandberg took over as interim manager Friday when Charlie Manuel, the winningest skipper in club history, was fired.
“We capitalized on a couple of miscues by the Dodgers,” said Sandberg, who is going to save the lineup card. “We’ll take it right now and hopefully build from that. Hopefully it will give us momentum for the rest of the homestand.”
Marcus Hayes at the Daily News:
The Phillies should remove the “interim” tag, sign Sandberg through 2015, be done with it. They have clear, 2-year windows with Chase Utley, Jonathan Papelbon, Jimmy Rollins and Cliff Lee. Give Sandberg the same window.
Simplify things. Amaro cannot expect Sandberg to shake any measure of competence or focus from a roster outclassed by nearly every team it faces. It took that roster 21 2/3 innings to score its first run for Sandberg. That roster committed five errors in its first three games for Sandberg. That roster needed two ninth-inning errors by Dodgers “shortstop” Hanley Ramirez to win its second game in 10 days.
Sandberg already has managed Domonic Brown, Freddy Galvis, Darin Ruf and other young players who will be essential to the Phillies becoming competitive again after a slide to .500 last season and a dive toward 90 losses this year. He’s the perfect guy to handle the next few seasons, which figure to be difficult ones after Amaro and the team’s ownership kept sinking dollars into a post-prime nucleus of players.
