Jonathan Papelbon is back in Philadelphia with the Washington Nationals, and he’s not exactly being careful with his words.
Here’s what Papelbon said before Monday’s series opener at Citizens Bank Park, via MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki.
“If I say something I mean it,” Papelbon said. “I’m not going to take anything back that I’ve ever said or did because I believe that it’s right. I don’t know if I got a bad rap here or whatever, but I can promise you I was far (from) the bad guy on this team. I was one of the few that wanted to actually win and I was one of the few that competed and posted up every day.”
Papelbon also wasn’t thrilled when the Phillies admitted they were in the early stages of a rebuild.
“I think the blame goes all the way from the front office all the way down to the bat boy,” he said. “When you don’t have an organization that wants to win it’s pretty evident when they go out and publicly say, we’re not going to win.”
And just to cap things off, he isn’t expecting induction into the Phillies Wall of Fame any time soon.
“I don’t like the barbeques at the alumni weekend anyway,” he said. “It doesn’t really hurt my feelings. The way I look back on it is I came here as a free agent and I looked to produce day in and day out, and I felt like I did that. We had a lot of injuries and a lot of guys fall by the wayside, but I was still be able to be there and grinding every day and posting up so that’s the way I look at it. It just so happened to be an unfortunate situation where you just lost one game after another.”
Papelbon would know something about not winning. Since the trade between the Phillies and Nationals was completed on July 28th, Washington is 20-24, while Philadelphia is 18-25. Not exactly a large gulf there.
Papelbon also has six saves, 11 strikeouts, and a 2.50 ERA in 18 innings as a National. His replacement in Philly, Ken Giles, has 13 saves, 24 strikeouts, and a 0.47 ERA in 19 1/3 innings since the deal. Looks like everything is working out alright for the Fightins.
[MLB.com]
