Todd Zolecki of MLB.com reports that Phillies manager and maybe-exiled closer Brad Lidge have hugged it out and have found some consensus.
"I don't see us using him in the seventh or eighth inning," Manuel said. "I look at him as a closer. That's kind of where he fits. I see him pitching once he needs work. If we're behind in the game or we're ahead or something by a good margin we'll get him to make sure he pitches live in the game and things. That's kind of how I look at it."
Happy? I am. Perfectly vague and fluid? Yup!
Brad Lidge himself:
"It's real simple," Lidge said. "Just get me work to get me where I need to be. That's about it. I told him, 'Listen, whatever you need to do, I'll be ready to take the ball at any time.' I told him it doesn't need to be a save situation.' Obviously, I'm ready to throw in those. But if we're up by six runs, down by six runs, I feel like I'm very close to where I need to be, but it wouldn't hurt to get a couple more outings. We're on the same page with everything and we had a good talk."
Oh word.
So what have we learned?
It looks like Charlie has remanded Lidge to 9th inning mop-up duty. Let him pitch in non-close games to work his stuff out. It's a great solution, really. He's not going to fix himself on the bench. Hopefully the Phillies offense can score enough runs for a couple of laughers so Brad can tune himself up.
Everybody breathe. This just might work itself out before the playoffs.