In my real job, I manage people. Sometimes my folks come dragging themselves into work despite having no business being in the office due to some contagious malady.

The last thing I want to hear from one of my employees is something along the lines of, “I’m not feeling too good today. Damn, this stomach bug is kicking my ass.”

Umm…go home. Right now. Don’t even get your coat. We’ll burn it for you.

In 2009, Brad Lidge had the pitching equivalent of the loosey juiceys. Luckily, it wasn’t something that anyone else on the pitching staff contracted, but he had no business coming to work regardless.

What’s worse, his bosses let him do it. Over. And over. And over.

I offer as new evidence the article in today’s Inquirer about Lidge using the Johnny Damon 2 base swipe in Game 4 of the 2009 World Series (referred to on this site as “Ruiz to Feliz to no one”) as motivation for improving his ability to hold runners on first base.

Lidge had this to say about the hoops he had to jump through to get the ball to the plate:

In order to minimize pain last year, he took to twisting the knee at the beginning of his motion, which relieved some of the pressure but slowed the pitch’s arrival at home plate.

“I had to twist, but that gave the runner extra time, about 0.4 [seconds],” Lidge said. “All of a sudden it becomes almost impossible for [catcher] Carlos [Ruiz] to throw a guy out, because of what I had to do just so I could pitch.”

And then this….

“One thing that comes from the surgery is feeling more agile and not worrying that when you spin off the mound to make a pickoff throw, your knee is going to get caught,” Lidge said. “When I did turn around and throw it to first, you were looking at a pretty stiff-bodied guy doing that.”

Ok, we knew that Brad Lidge was not himself even after coming off the 15 day DL on June 25. After blowing his ninth game on Aug. 25th, Andy Martino wrote this:

So what’s wrong with the guy this year, after a perfect 2008? I would not be at all surprised if we learned during the offseason that his knee was more seriously injured than we knew, but that is mere speculation right now.

Lidge blew 2 more saves in the regular season and flirted with danger on more than one occasion in the postseason. His meltdown was complete in the Game 4 after the Phils had tied the game on a Pedro Feliz home run off of Joba Chamberlin in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Oh, and then he proceeded to have 65 (ok, 2) surgeries after the season to fix all of the shit that was actually causing him to not be the Brad Lidge of 2008. Great.

Charlie and Dubee cannot let this happen again. It is completely ridiculous that they kept trotting him out there in unbelievably high leverage situations when they clearly knew he wasn’t at his best. I like “players” coaches as much as the next guy, but you don’t let a guy like Lidge, who would take the ball if his arm was dangling from his shoulder by one tendon, if you know he needs nearly a half a second more than usual to deliver the ball to home plate.

Lidge freely offers this information up in such a matter of fact manner months after we watched the Game 4 debacle signal the beginning of the end for our beloved Fightins’. It pisses me off. It seems like Charlie allowed Lidge’s desire to try and gut it out to cloud his decision making on how to handle the bullpen. Ryan Madson hardly set the world on fire in in the closers role when given the opportunity, but I can’t help but wonder what if.

Charlie’s job is to toe the line between keeping his players focused and motivated and ensuring that he is fielding the 25 best possible Phillies to win games. As it relates to Brad Lidge, he gets an “F” for 2009.

Since last year is just a memory now, thoughts turn to 2010 and what Charlie and Dubee will do the next time they have a pitcher with the runs. They’d better give him some Immodium and send his ass home. Especially when a little thing like a World Series is hanging in the balance.