HATBORO, Pa. — It’s the top of the ninth inning at Citizens Bank Park, and the Philadelphia Phillies’ relievers are at it again. They have already blown one lead, with Jeurys Familia and Seranthony Domínguez giving up homers in the seventh. Now after a comeback, the game has unraveled with closer Corey Knebel on the mound.
The Miami Marlins win it, 11-9, and from his living room couch in the suburbs here, Matt Edwards sighs.
“Celebrating some of these guys is really hard,” he said.
Indeed it is: The Phillies are the only National League team without a playoff appearance in the last 10 years, and their bullpen is an annual adventure. Nostalgia can be an enticing escape (beer helps, too), and nobody celebrates the past quite like Edwards, a 45-year-old telecommunications salesman with a wife, Cheryl, two young sons, a Great Dane — and a shrine in his downstairs bathroom to retired Phillies relief pitchers.
“We’re highly aware that we weren’t one of the five starters or any of the guys on the field,” said Chad Durbin, who spent four seasons as a Phillies reliever. “But, you know, we had our moments. So when we’re remembered, we embrace it.”
Durbin logged 225 games for the Phillies, postseason included, with a 4.07 earned run average. He pitched for five other teams, but as far as he knows, none of their fans have his picture in their bathroom. As you might guess, Durbin does not have a presence at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., either.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “But I do in the Relief Room.”