Larry Andersen was on the WIP morning show today, talking about your red-hot Philadelphia Phillies.

Red hot in a bad way, since they’ve lost seven games in a row. But perhaps that changes tonight when they host the New York Mets, a team that had to apologize after manager Mickey Callaway called a reporter a “motherfucker” in the clubhouse.

Andersen said this about your team, your town:

“It just, it looks… I hate to say it, but it looked lifeless, and it looked listless, like there wasn’t energy, and not even getting something going, getting the crowd into it. You just don’t see it. And I’m not in the dugout so I can only say what I see. I’m not down there, I don’t know if everybody’s pulling for each other, if they’re making an effort. I don’t want to say that they’re not, and I’ve said this before, even as a player, when you’re not scoring and not playing well it looks like you have no energy and it looks like you don’t care. You can’t just say they don’t care, but I’d certainly like to see more energy. I’d like to see more of everything, you know?”

The Phillies were swept over the weekend by the Fish, which seems impossible, regardless of how poorly you’re playing.

Inevitably the conversation turned to accountability and the benching of players, with Andersen offering this take, after the jump:


“I can’t tolerate it happening over and over. I want to see the results of some reprimand. I wanna see it. I don’t want to hear about it being talked about, I want to see something happen at this point. Because it just, it can’t happen, and Gabe is gonna have his player’s backs; I absolutely agree with that. Whether you like Gabe or not, if the players are playing for him, if they like him, that’s what matters the most.

But at the same time, I think he would get more respect if he would put his foot down, if he would say ‘don’t bother going back out there, you had your chance and you blew it.’ So put somebody else out there. Is it going to hurt you taking a good player out or one of your starters out because he’s not hustling? It might hurt you, but I think you’re going to gain more from it. You can’t keep doing these same things over and expecting different results. It’s not happening.”

Full audio below: