NEW YORK — For two former Yankees managers, the month of May wrought contrasting fortunes, leaving Buck Showalter sitting pretty in first place with the largest lead on June 1 of any Mets team in history — at the same time, Joe Girardi’s seat got hotter and hotter until Friday when he was relieved of his job in Philly, very likely ending his career.
Two old-school managers who have gone in vastly different directions.
Besides both having managed the Yankees, Showalter and Girardi, in their later years, met similar resistance in their hopes of remaining in the game, each of them passed up numerous times by some of the same teams. Showalter, one of the runners-up to Girardi for the Phillies job in 2020. is so far making good in what is most probably his own last stop on the manager merry-go-round. His Mets players clearly love playing for him and there is no question about a major culture change having come over Citi Field. One reason his players are enjoying playing for him — and performing accordingly — is because he doesn’t complicate things, and with his “next man up” philosophy never allows their minds to stray beyond the game at hand.
