Larry Bowa knows: Relax and play. How Phillies rookie Bryson Stott learned to show he belongs.

ST. LOUIS — Bryson Stott sat quietly in front of his locker before a game in Atlanta. It was May 26, and he was stuck in a 1-for-19 slump that left his season batting average at .119. He had already been sent back to triple A once. Could another demotion be far behind?

But rather than hanging his head so low that it could drag the infield, the Phillies rookie shortstop was defiant.

“I know I can hit,” he said that day. “I’m good. I think I’m going to turn it around.”

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All Stott needed was a chance. At least that’s what Larry Bowa kept saying. And Bowa would know. Before he won two Gold Gloves, made five All-Star teams, played for Phillies teams that went to the playoffs five times in six years, won the 1980 World Series, and became a longtime coach and manager, Bowa batted .170 with a .422 on-base-plus-slugging percentage through 40 games of his rookie season in 1970.

“[Manager] Frank Lucchesi called me in and said, ‘I don’t care if you get a hit the rest of the year. You’re my shortstop,’” Bowa recalled. “At that time, I think I was hitting under .200. I looked at him and thought, I’ve got a rookie manager telling me, a rookie, that he doesn’t care what I do? That was like a ton of bricks off my shoulders.”

It’s difficult to take stock of Stott’s rookie year without thinking about Bowa’s. As players, they have little in common other than their position on the field. Bowa was 5-foot-10 and 155 pounds, undrafted, a dazzling defender who hit a total of 15 home runs in a 16-year career; Stott is 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, the 14th overall pick in the 2019 draft, and hit 10 homers this season.

But they were rookies at age 24, and their early struggles were profound. Bowa didn’t poke his head above .200 until June 2; Stott, who turned 25 on Thursday, didn’t get there until Aug. 6. Yet by the end of their first seasons, there was little doubt they belonged in the majors.

“And when I came up, we weren’t expected to win,” Bowa said. “We had a young team, a really young team, and everyone knew we weren’t going to do anything. But [Stott] is playing on a team that’s supposed to be in the playoffs. There’s more pressure that way, as opposed to, ‘OK, I’m just going to do my thing out here.’”

In that sense, it stood to reason that Stott had trouble cracking the lineup on an everyday basis in April and May. The Phillies put him and third baseman Alec Bohm on the opening-day roster because then-manager Joe Girardi believed he could find consistent at-bats for both of them, in addition to veteran shortstop Didi Gregorius.

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But trusting young players isn’t Girardi’s forte, especially amid the pressure to win games as a manager without a contract for next season. Stott started seven of the first nine games (four at second base, two at third base, one at shortstop) and went 4-for-26 with nine strikeouts. He wasn’t in the lineup for six of the next seven games, with Girardi opting for slick-fielding utility infielder Johan Camargo.

“I never really lost confidence, but not playing every day kind of tells you what you need to know,” said Stott, the third rookie shortstop on a Phillies playoff team after Kevin Stocker in 1993 and Dave Bancroft in 1915. “At the start of the year, I would play a game and sit two, then play a game and sit four. That kind of tells you that you’re not playing very well.”

It also creates an environment in which a young player feels additional pressure to produce in order to stay in the lineup. On one hand, as the steward of a team with a $237 million payroll and postseason expectations, Girardi couldn’t simply commit to Stott a la Lucchesi with Bowa for the 88-loss Phillies in 1970. On the other, Stott needed to play in order to gain confidence.

The Phillies fired Girardi on June 3 and elevated bench coach Rob Thomson to interim manager. And while Thomson rightly receives credit for being more nurturing with young players than his friend and predecessor, Stott’s opportunity really arose, as these things often do, through a teammate’s misfortune.

Second baseman Jean Segura broke his index finger May 31 while trying to bunt. Stott started at second base the next night — Girardi’s last game at the helm — and went 2-for-4. He got two hits in the game after that. Two days later, he hit a game-winning three-run homer in the ninth inning against the Los Angeles Angels.

In all, Segura missed 54 games. Stott started 48 of them and batted .227 with seven homers and a .680 OPS. But if the results looked, well, meh, the Phillies were impressed with Stott’s growth. His at-bats got more competitive. His defense at second base was solid.

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And when Segura returned, the Phillies really demonstrated their confidence in Stott. They released Gregorius, swallowing more than $5 million remaining on his two-year, $28 million contract, and installed Stott as the everyday shortstop. It was the most money they ate since they released outfielder Michael Saunders midway through a one-year, $8 million contract in 2017.

In a sense, it was Stott’s version of Bowa’s pep talk from Lucchesi.

“I think that was the message when Didi was let go — ‘Hey, Stott, you’re the guy. Go out there, relax, have fun, and play,’” Bowa said. “And I think that sort of eased his mind a lot. I’m sure that was a big weight off his shoulders. I think he took a deep breath. I think you can see it in the way he’s performed since that happened.”

Indeed, Stott batted .286 with three homers and a .756 OPS, including a .338 on-base percentage. When Kyle Schwarber missed time with a calf strain, Stott was Thomson’s choice to bat in the leadoff spot for five games, including two against New York Mets co-aces Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom.

“It kind of lets you know what they’re thinking,” Stott said. “For them to put me there when Schwarbs was down was awesome for me.”

The lessons still come daily. Late in the season, as the Phillies made their playoff push, Stott hit a wall, going hitless in 20 at-bats. It has been the longest season of his brief career, and before it started, Stott attended the Phillies’ minor league minicamp in February and played in the Arizona Fall League for six weeks last year. He has played a lot of baseball in the last 18 months.

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Stott takes his cues from veteran players. He often sits next to Nick Castellanos on the team bus. He’s close friends with Bryce Harper, around whom he grew up in Las Vegas. He leans on infield coach Bobby Dickerson. Bowa chimes in with the occasional word of encouragement.

“The thing I like about him, he doesn’t panic,” Bowa said. “I’ve seen this guy go up and take two strikes just like that, and then before you know it, he’s walking or getting a base hit. His instincts are off the charts. The fact that he battled this hard and came back the way he did this year, that shows me a lot about his mental toughness.”

The Phillies may still pursue a shortstop in free agency this winter. Trea Turner and Dansby Swanson will be available, along with Carlos Correa and Xander Bogaerts, if they opt out of their contracts, as expected. Segura has a $17 million club option that likely won’t be renewed. Gregorius’ money will be off the books, too.

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But one thing is clear: Stott is in the plans for 2023 and beyond, be it at shortstop or second base.

“He’s handled every situation,” Bowa said. “He’s hit [at the] bottom, he’s hit top, he’s hit fifth. He’s played short, he’s played second. Everything you’ve asked him to do, he’s done. I think we’re going to be in good hands with this kid for a long time.”