Phillies RHP Roy Halladay speaks out about Charlie Manuel firing

”Obviously, I loved [Charlie]. He was great. But from what I’ve seen, Ryne [Sandberg] came in and made some changes and addressed some issues that I think were being overlooked.

So from that standpoint, as much as I miss Charlie, I think that Ryne’s going to do a good job and I think he’s going to bring back a little more of the Phillie baseball style than we’ve had the last couple of years.

Halladay added that he doesn’t want to “take anything away from Charlie,” and that the entire team “respected him tremendously,” but that he didn’t feel the Phillies had “that whole team effort and the whole team hustle” the last couple seasons like they did in seasons prior. He also elaborated on the issues he thought were overlooked, indicating that enforcement of little things like punctuality and taking extra BP or grounders had become lax.

Manuel, who served as the Phillies manager from 2005 to last Friday, has also had his own say on his dismissal. Among other things, he told CSN Philly that he didn’t feel he was handed a team that could win the last two years. Manuel said that he knew at the “start of the season, both years” that the Phillies weren’t good enough to contend, but figured that GM Ruben Amaro would add pieces as the season went along like he had in the past:

”I always figured we’d add the pieces and things like that...

“I knew if we started the season with this team that somewhere along the lines we were going to improve it ... there were a lot of those years that we did all that.”

The Phillies are currently 55-70 on the year -- well out of the playoff hunt -- and are 2-3 since Sandberg took over as manager last Friday.

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