In defense of Rob Thomson, who keeps winning even though he won’t pinch-hit Bryce Harper on his day off

On Saturday evening, Rob Thomson told 31-year-old first baseman Bryce Harper and 33-year-old catcher J.T. Realmuto that they would not play Sunday afternoon against the Nationals. They would not be asked to pinch hit, pinch run, or pitch in relief. Their bodies, having endured a combined 28 years of professional baseball, would receive a full 48 hours of rest, interrupted only by a quick flight to Atlanta on Sunday night.

This decision, as always, came after consulting the team’s medical staff, its strength and conditioning staff, and the front-office staff. It would be a full day off, with no exceptions, for an unremarkable getaway-day game in the dog days of summer. This largely has been Thomson’s policy since he became manager in relief of Joe Girardi in June 2022.

Pinch-hit heroics are the most romantic moments in baseball. Kirk Gibson became an all-time sports legend when he came off the trainer’s table in the ninth inning and hit his two-out home run for the Dodgers off A’s closer Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

Matt Stairs will never have to buy a beer in Philly after his pinch-hit two-run homer in the eighth inning of Game 4 of the 2008 NLCS broke a tie and silenced Dodger Stadium.

But Stairsy was a 40-year-old specialist — he holds the MLB record with 23 pinch-hit homers — and Gibby got the chance because it was the postseason, and now that the National League has adopted the designated hitter, pinch hitting is less a weapon than an oddity.

Which brings us to the current fiasco.

It came to pass on Sunday that, trailing by two runs in the bottom of the ninth, the Phillies’ leadoff hitter reached base. Right-handed pitcher Kyle Finnegan was on the mound. Harper is a left-handed hitter. So ... ?

Thomson didn’t blink. He let Cal Stevenson, a career minor-leaguer who also hits left-handed, stay in the game and take the at-bat. Stevenson, 27, had seven home runs and a .908 OPS in triple A this season, but he has hit zero homers in the majors.

He still hasn’t hit one.

Stevenson grounded into a double play. The next hitter, backup catcher Garrett Stubbs (also a left-handed hitter), also grounded out. It was the worst possible outcome for the oddly large contingent of critics of Thomson. The critics adore such moments, because it gives them a chance to dust off other decisions by Thomson that didn’t work out, particularly during the past two postseasons.

So, Skip: Why not pinch-hit with Harper? Why not pinch-hit with Realmuto?

“I wanted to give both him and J.T. a full day [off].”

Off, with Thomson and general manager Sam Fuld and president Dave Dombrowski, means off. Thomson will pinch-hit a platoon player or an extra man, but if you’re a regular and you’re off, especially if you’re over 30, then you’re off.

And that should have been that — except, it’s Philly. The Sunday night TV wrap-up shows and the talk-radio stations (an ecosystem of which I am a part) latched onto the issue like it was the Watergate scandal.

Given the nature of the Philadelphia beast, Thomson of course had to address the issue again Tuesday, before the Phillies played the Braves:

“I hate losing. I love winning. We’ve done a lot of [winning] the last couple years. But part of that formula is to make sure everybody’s healthy, that everybody can get through the end of the year, hopefully get into the playoffs, and then make a long run.”

It didn’t help matters that, recently, Phillies owner John Middleton told a group of reporters:

“Every game matters to me. Every single one. Every at-bat matters to me. There’s a mentality in baseball that is different from other sports. It’s a long season. You can’t get upset about what happened on a Tuesday night in July. Yeah, well, sometimes Tuesday nights in July determine season outcomes.”

» READ MORE: The Phillies, facing a brutal run, need Bryce Harper to make an MVP push to earn the No. 1 seed

Notably, Middleton added that his superfan myopia is a reason why he doesn’t hang around the players, coaches, and manager much.

It didn’t help, either, that the Phillies did not play Monday, leaving a vacuum into which illogical and somewhat artificial outrage poured.

This isn’t 1988 or 2008. It’s 2024. Sports science is an expensive discipline, and the Phillies have spent millions of dollars establishing protocol, so if the science says a full day of rest for 30-something everyday players is more beneficial in the long run, then they will follow the science.

What most folks either don’t know or refuse to acknowledge is that the situation was not as simple as Topper saying, “Bryce, grab a bat.”

Every day that Harper expects to play, he spends about 90 minutes stretching, hitting, throwing, performing calisthenics, and sometimes lifting weights. He even eats certain foods. He is a fine-tuned, $330 million, 210-pound machine. The same is true of Realmuto. There’s a pretty good chance neither of them was even wearing cleats or jockstraps during the game. Can’t be sure; they were nowhere to be found either before or after the game. Which also is typical.

Consider, too, whom you’re asking to spring into action.

» READ MORE: Bryce Harper is right, this is a big series for the Phillies, not just the Braves. History shows why.

Realmuto had just caught five days in a row for the first time since missing five weeks following knee surgery. Knee surgery.

Harper missed 10 days in late June and early July with a hamstring injury. He’d battled through a torn elbow ligament in 2022 and 2023 that helped convince the Phillies to end his days in right field. He has a chronically bad back.

You want those creaky old guys firing it up against the Nats in a day game after a night game?

Harper also was 0-for-7 in his last two games. Topper benched him Sunday because he looked off-balance and tired and overeager at the plate. Further, in the last two years Harper had one hit against Finnegan — an infield single — with two strikeouts and was hitless in his last four at-bats against him.

Thomson might have considered all of this, but, in this instance, he didn’t need to.

Harper and Realmuto were off. Period.

It’s ridiculous that Thomson’s use of these two players is a matter of discussion at all. They’re both overused.

Realmuto plays too much. It’s a narrative every season. Harper should be the designated hitter once a week, but he can’t be because Kyle Schwarber is a horrific left fielder. At any rate, Thomson seems to have figured out how to deliver Harper and Realmuto to October at peak functionality.

Realmuto hit .265 with an .825 OPS last postseason.

Harper’s 1.137 postseason OPS as a Phillie is the best of any Phillie with 15 playoff games — by 150 points.

Would you rather have Harper fresh for the NLDS or deny him rest — or worse, risk him getting hurt — against the Nationals in August?

I’ll admit, I tend to accept Thomson’s decisions more readily than most. I had little problem with him pulling ace Zack Wheeler for José Alvarado in the sixth inning of Game 6 of the 2022 World Series. Pinch-hitting for rookie Johan Rojas, his best defender, in the fourth inning of Game 7 of the NLCS with a one-run lead — that’s just a dumb idea.

But I couldn’t believe he kept going to rookie Orion Kerkering and faded Craig Kimbrel in the NLCS last year. I didn’t think Rojas, an emergency replacement last year, was ready for full-time work in the majors coming out of spring training this year, but Thomson wanted him in center field; he finally was sent down in June (he’s back).

Few coaches or managers I’ve been around in my 34 years as a writer are as attuned to the pulse of their players as Thomson. He is why an underachieving team under Girardi, a World Series winner, is achieving to its capabilities. The Phillies entered Wednesday’s game in Atlanta 21 games over .500 and six games ahead of the Braves.

Not that you’d know it.

Frankly, Harper probably should have sat Tuesday in Atlanta, too; he went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. Thomson implied that he considered keeping a regular or two out of the lineup Tuesday, but Harper started Tuesday and Wednesday.

Harper has pinch hit three times in the last five seasons. The last two times were in the second game of a doubleheader in 2022 and the first game of a doubleheader in 2023. So he’d done his game-day preparation. Unlike Sunday.

Over his career, Harper has been a superb pinch hitter, with a .389 average and a 1.333 OPS in 22 plate appearances, but, really, the task has gone the way of the dodo.

Which, in this instance, is what a lot of Thomson’s critics sound like.