Rosenthal: Phillies’ Joe Girardi is under scrutiny, but firing the manager

With Phillies manager Joe Girardi facing questions from reporters about his job security, owner John Middleton and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski must consider the following.

• Would moving on from Girardi elicit howls of injustice from players, fans and media? (Probably not.)

• Who would replace Girardi? (There is no obvious answer.)

• Would a new manager improve the team’s performance? (Not without better defense and better relief pitching, and Dombrowski cannot snap his fingers and make those problems disappear.)

Sometimes teams believe change is necessary for change’s sake. The Phillies, seven games under .500 for the first time since the end of the 2017 season, might be reaching that point. The largest deficit a Phillies team has overcome to win a division was 8 1/2 games in 2007. The current group, the product of a club-record $228.7 million payroll, is 11 1/2 games back.

The expansion of the postseason means all is not lost for a franchise trying to make the playoffs for the first time since 2011, the second-longest drought in the majors. As the calendar turns to June, seven National League teams likely are pretenders, leaving eight clubs to battle for six spots. The Phillies, while six games back in the race for the third wild card, have played one of the toughest schedules in the majors.  Their remaining schedule is one of the easiest.

So, one way to look at this is that things can only get better, particularly when four Phillies sluggers — Nick Castellanos, Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber — are not producing to their expected levels when compared to the rest of the league. All but Realmuto, who had the day off, hit home runs Monday in the Phillies’ latest dispiriting defeat, 5-4 to the Giants in 10 innings. But uh, have you seen this team in action? The Phillies are who we thought they were. Only worse.

Back on March 21, shortly after Dombrowski added to his collection of DHs by signing Schwarber and Castellanos, The Athletic’s Jayson Stark wrote a story headlined, “Can a team as defensively challenged as the Phillies win anything?” Dombrowski obviously thought so. His 2014 and 2013 Tigers teams made the playoffs even though they were the third- and fourth-lowest rated teams according to Defensive Runs Saved since the invention of the metric in 2003.

The Phillies signed Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos before this season. (Dale Zanine / USA Today Sports)

By adding Schwarber and Castellanos to a club that finished last in DRS last season, Dombrowski essentially was taking advantage of what the market offered, knowing he couldn’t fix his defense in one fell swoop. Middleton hired him in Dec. 2020 to clean up the mess left by the team’s previous GM, Matt Klentak, and to do it quickly. But when right fielder Bryce Harper, the Phillies’ best defensive outfielder, suffered a small tear to the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow, a dubious plan went even more awry.

Harper has not played the field since April 16, and might not again until August, if at all this season. Schwarber and Castellanos man the outfield corners most days, and it is not a pretty sight. Center field, meanwhile, is something of a black hole. The Phillies rank 25th in the majors in fWAR from center field, and the jury is out on how much of a difference Monday’s promotion of former No. 1 overall pick Mickey Moniak will make.

The Phillies, in a rare burst of inspired play, won their season series from the Dodgers, four games to three. But they are last in DRS, last in Outs Above Average and 27th in defensive efficiency. And their revamped bullpen, while featuring pitchers with better stuff than in the past, has the highest walk rate in the majors. So, even with an offense that ranks 11th in the majors in runs per game and an above-average rotation headed by Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler, the Phillies and their manager are in crisis.

Girardi can be relentlessly intense; it’s difficult to imagine Phillies infielders teasing him during pitching changes the way the Mets’ Francisco Lindor and Eduardo Escobar do with a manager who has lightened up some, Buck Showalter. The Phillies have not exactly eased Girardi’s mind by declining to pick up his option for 2023, making this the last guaranteed year of his contract. A story in the Philadelphia Inquirer over the weekend quoted several players questioning the team’s enthusiasm, which might have been a reflection on Girardi. It also might have been a reflection on the team’s frustration with losing. Or both.

Yet, even if Middleton and Dombrowski wanted to replace Girardi, their options would be limited. The team’s coaching staff includes bench coach Rob Thomson, who interviewed for Girardi’s old job with the Yankees after the 2017 season; hitting coach Kevin Long, who lost the Mets’ managing job to Mickey Callaway during that same period; and third base coach Dusty Wathan, who…