When Jonathan Papelbon signed a four-year $50 million deal with the Phillies prior to the 2012 season, he joined a team which had won the NL East five straight years including a World Series in 2008, and was a perennial contender.
But last season, the 81-81 Phillies missed the playoffs, and they are currently eight games under .500 and on an eight-game losing streak, which makes for one very unhappy closer.
“I definitely didn’t come here for this,” Papelbon told MLB.com after pitching the ninth inning of a 12-4 blowout loss to the Tigers on Sunday.
Papelbon has 20 saves in 25 chances this season with a 2.21 ERA. He could soon find his way out of Philadelphia with the trading deadline on Wednesday as several playoff-contending teams are in need of a closer.
“If I don’t do my job right, they’re going to find somebody else,” he said.
But if he does remain, he thinks the Phillies have a lot of work to do, to get back to where they once were.
“Oh, man. We could be here all day,” he said about what needs to change.
“It’s going to take, in my opinion, a lot. And in my opinion, I think it’s going to have to be something very similar to what the Red Sox went through a couple years ago. From top to bottom,” Papelbon said.
In 2011 after one of the worst collapses in baseball history, the Red Sox fired their manager and got rid of many players, including Papelbon.
“That’s part of the business. If you want to go in a different direction and I’m not a piece of that puzzle, so be it. This is a job. There are no feelings in this game. I left. Carl [Crawford] left. [Josh] Beckett left. Adrian [Gonzalez] left. Now look at them,” he said, referring to Boston, which sits in first place in the AL East with a 63-43 record.