Don’t tell John Middleton that the Phillies’ losing streak was normal

John Middleton was studying at Harvard Business School, across from Fenway Park, when the Red Sox were seven games ahead of the Yankees in the American League East on September 1, 1978.

At the beginning of October they were on equal footing.

“The Yankees played very well,” Middleton said recently, “but (they came back) mainly because the Red Sox collapsed for a month.”

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Middleton thought about that epic race, right down to Bucky Dent’s famous home run against Boston’s Green Monster in a tiebreaker game, while watching the Phillies recently. It’s not that he’s fatalistic — or worse, pessimistic. It’s just that, why doesn’t the 69-year-old fan-in-chief/owner of his hometown team describe his feelings over the past five weeks?

“I can’t remember a Phillies team that was as good as ours up until July 11 struggling like this team did starting on July 12,” Middleton said. “The first week was bad. But that happens. The second week was even worse. But that happens. By the time we got to the third and fourth weeks, it was like, ‘OK. Stop.'”

In case you were away over the summer, the Phillies were 61-32 after a three-game sweep of the Dodgers on July 11. Since then, they’re 12-19, including an 8-18 loss that marked their worst 26-game streak in six years and prompted a team meeting before batting practice last Wednesday. Four wins in five consecutive games, albeit against the uncompetitive Marlins and Nationals but powered by dominant starting pitchers, suggest they’re coming out of the slump. Finally.

Middleton doesn’t call himself a “baseball man.” He ran his family’s tobacco company before selling it for nearly $3 billion in 2007. But he spends his time with experienced baseball people, many of whom dined at his home on Sunday to cap off the Phillies’ annual alumni weekend. He asks questions and values ​​their opinions. He relies on the wisdom of Hall of Fame general manager Pat Gillick. There’s no one in the sport he trusts more than Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.

But Middleton also listens to sports on the radio and shares many of the callers’ views. He is passionate and has the tremendous competitive spirit of a former college wrestler. When asked how he was doing before a night game, he said, “Ask me around 9:30 p.m.” When Middleton heard in 2015 that newly hired club president Andy MacPhail once ripped a phone off the wall because of his team’s poor play, he thought he had found a soul mate.

“I think I’ll sit with you,” he said to MacPhail. “You sound kind of like me.”

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So no, Middleton didn’t write off 18 losses in 26 games as a downturn, as respected baseball people tell him is normal in a long season. And it was no consolation to him to hear that the Rangers had survived a 7-17 stretch last summer before winning the World Series.

That’s not how he was wired, not when he was a kid listening to the games on the radio on family vacations to the coast, and certainly not now, when he’s pumping nearly $260 million (including luxury tax) into his club’s payroll, which costs more than ever before.

Middleton’s opinion on the Phillies’ 8-18 series: “This is a serious problem.”

“I don’t think you can just sit there and say, ‘Oh, this is what happened, so we’re going to turn it around.’ I don’t think you can be that passive,” he continued. “I think you have to apply pressure — and make people rethink their past behavior. That goes for coaches and players. Everyone has to step back and say, ‘What are we doing wrong? Why is a team that won with a .700 winning percentage for 3.5 months now playing with a .325 winning percentage for five weeks?'”

Middleton seems satisfied with the answer. He admits that he gets overly emotional, so he doesn’t intervene. While he broods over losses (not to mention David Bell’s mistake and Billy Wagner’s blown save against the Astros in a September game 19 years ago), he lets cooler heads do something about it.

“You have to know your limits, your strengths and weaknesses,” he said. “Leave the work to other people who can do these tasks better than you. That’s also one reason why I’m very careful not to spend too much time with the players and coaches.”

Dombrowski signed a right-handed outfielder (Austin Hays) and a late-inning relief pitcher (Carlos Estévez) — and didn’t give up any top talent — at a trade deadline that lacked difference-maker players. Manager Rob Thomson has maintained his usual even-keel attitude. Coaches and players continue to work hard.

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And Middleton tries to stay sane by recalling something Gillick told him after he was hired by the Phillies in December 2005. Over lunch in the management dining room at Citizens Bank Park, Middleton asked what it would take to win a World Series.

“His answer,” Middleton said, “was luck. And I said, ‘I’ve been lucky in many periods of my life. I don’t know exactly what role you think luck plays in a World Series title.’ He said, ‘Well, John, good organizations consistently produce good teams that contend for the playoffs and often make the playoffs. But the difference between making the playoffs and winning the World Series is luck. Because to win the World Series, you need 25 healthy guys playing well at just the right moment. The moments when all the stars align … you have to get the luck.'”

“You can look at almost any season and there’s a team where, if the season was suspended in July and they had the World Series, a different team would win the World Series than the team that ultimately won it.”

In 1978, it was the Red Sox on the first day of September. 46 years later, by the 11th day of July, it might be the Phillies. By the end of October, it might be the Phillies again.

“You never know,” Middleton said, “so you have to strike while the iron is hot. And right now it is hot. The players and the coaching staff have to understand that. They have to go hard. So it’s time to shake off the cobwebs and play like it’s May or June.”

“The Rangers and Diamondbacks had time to recover (last year) and get going. Hopefully we can do the same. But you can’t just assume it’s going to happen. You have to make it happen.”