The Phillies’ Kevin Long knows coaching hitting and trash-talking. And he’s exceptional at both.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Last spring, Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm arrived at camp without a guaranteed big league job. The Phillies had Didi Gregorius working at third, just in case Bohm was sent to the minors. There was speculation that he could be moved in a trade. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the 25-year-old infielder.

So, one day, Kevin Long decided it was time for a change.

“I’m not a reserve,” Bohm told his hitting coach. “I’m a starter.”

“Well, today, you’re going to the backfields,” Long told Bohm. “You’re going to take 15 at-bats.”

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So that’s what he did. While his teammates played in the spring training games in mid-March, Bohm hit with assistant hitting coach Jason Camilli. He went one day, early in spring, and then another day, and another, and before long, things started to click. He felt comfortable.

It had been a long time since Bohm last felt comfortable. In college, he used to hit for fun, but over the past few years, hitting had felt like work. Under Long, things changed.

“He brought joy back to hitting,” Bohm said. “And it obviously helped me.”

Now, after a season in which Bohm hit .280/.315/.398 in 152 games, they joke about it. Bohm likes to call his hitting coach “Kevin Wrong,” and Long likes to call his pupil a less family-friendly name. Sometimes, when Bohm is in the cage, Long will gently remind Bohm of how far he’s come — while also keeping him humble.

“He’ll say, ‘Are we going to need to send you to the backfields today?’” Bohm said with a grin. “It’s non-stop. But going into the cage is fun. It’s not work. We’re all getting our work in — but everybody wants to go to the cage.”

This is a big part of what makes Long, 56, so effective. He obviously knows a lot about hitting, but he also knows a lot about his hitters, their personalities, when it’s time to push them, and when it’s time to lighten the mood. No one is immune. He’s chirped at everyone from Charlie Manuel to Seranthony Domínguez.

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“He says, ‘Oh, here comes the great Charlie Manuel,’” Manuel said. “I dish it back.”

Domínguez was running alongside Long in Atlanta last season before a game, and gently pushed him on the side. Long pulled his hamstring.

“Ever since then, everything is my fault,” Dominguez said. “I like to call him lazy. When he gives me a high-five after games on the field, I’ll poke him in the stomach and say ‘How’s the baby? Is it twins?’”

Long played golf with catcher J.T. Realmuto a few weeks ago, and Realmuto had a bad day putting. Long has mentioned it to him every day since.

“He pretends to work on my putting stroke with me, basically picking on me,” Realmuto said. “He’s got an innate ability to talk trash to you everyday but also make you feel like you’re the best hitter alive.”

When Trea Turner was with the Washington Nationals, and Long was in his first season as hitting coach with the team in 2018, Max Scherzer was playing cards with some teammates on a team flight. Long sat next to Scherzer and started wearing him out.

“He was like, ‘How are we supposed to win if you’re our ace? You can’t even win a card game,’” Turner said. “It’s hard to give Max crap. He’s very competitive. And they barely knew each other. They weren’t working together every day. That’s when I knew Kevin could dish it out. It doesn’t matter who you are or when you meet him.”

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Long might go at it with Turner more than he does with any other player on the Phillies’ roster. Turner said their hitting sessions involve “a lot of yelling, to make the people around us uncomfortable.”

Turner will even blame Long when he’s going through a hitting slump.

“I’ll say ‘Kevin, it’s your fault,’” Turner said. “I love a good bad scouting report. I’ll come back to the dugout and say, ‘You got out right there, not me. You’ve got the wrong information.’ Anything’s on the table.”

This may seem organic — and some of it is. Long said he’s been chirping at teammates ever since he was a minor leaguer in the Kansas City Royals system. But it is not without purpose. He knows his hitters are going to fail. That’s just the nature of the game. If you’re getting a hit one-third of the time, you’re statistically at the top of the league.

So, if even the best hitters are going to fail, why not interject some levity every once in a while?

“The game is so hard that you have to laugh even when you’re not doing well,” Turner said. “And a lot of times you’re not doing well with this game just because you fail so much. So I think with Kevin, we’ve kind of figured out how to have fun while working hard.”

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