Pete Mackanin Has Given This Young Phillies Team Confidence

Heading into action Wednesday night the Phillies record stands at 19-14, which is the 4th best record in the National League.  ESPN Baseball Analyst Rick Sutcliffe told Mike Gill on Wednesday that a major reason for the Phillies' success in 2016 is their manager:

"I've known Pete Mackanin for a long, long time, I'm thrilled that he has an opportunity take over a team from day one and see how much better how he can help the young guys improve. We saw him early in the year, we saw him back the first week of April, we saw the issues that they were having with their bullpen and thought 'here we go again, it's going to be one of those situations' but the next think you know he started putting everything together. There's a lot of young ability in that every day lineup, a lot of athleticism, I think the biggest thing Pete's done is just given these guys the confidence. I remember him saying 'If you're going to make a mistake do it on the side of aggressiveness'. And I think that just kind of frees a young player up to go out there...the freedom he's given those young players is the reason a lot of these guys are playing as well as they ever have before."

Checkout what Sutcliffe had to say about Phillies young pitchers, his issue with Pitch Counts, along with thoughts on the future of Mike Trout with Angels and reaction to Cubs having the best record in Baseball