By late June of last season, Philadelphia Phillies manager Pete Mackanin had had it with second baseman Cesar Hernandez.
Hernandez wasn't hitting - his average had fallen to .248, with a hideous .293 on-base percentage - and he was making one mental mistake after another.
So Mackanin benched him for the opener of a three-game series in Minnesota. And Hernandez found himself sitting in the dugout next to Mackanin's bench coach, Larry Bowa, before batting practice that night.
Larry Bowa
Bowa asked him if he knew why he wasn't playing. Hernandez said he just figured he was getting a rest.
Which is when Bowa detonated. When he informed him he wasn't playing "worth a crap," as he put it before appearing at The Janus School's benefit luncheon Friday in Lancaster.
Keep it up, Bowa told Hernandez, and you'll be sitting next to me the rest of the season.
"I raised my voice a little bit to him, too," Bowa said. "Those aren't the exact words I said. I dropped a few F-bombs on him."
Mackanin held Hernandez out the next day, too. But in the series finale he went 4-for-4, and by season's end he had raised his average to .294, with a .371 on-base percentage. Both were highest among the team's regulars.
A lesson learned, then. And an inch gained in the rebuilding process. It's ongoing - the Phillies went 71-91 last season, their fourth straight losing season - but not Sixer-ish. There is some promise, some reason for hope. Enough, Bowa said, that "you've got to think about getting to .500. I think that should be a goal: We've got to play .500 baseball."
Pitching is always the biggest key to turning the corner, and there are enough young arms, on the major league roster and looming in the minors, to offer optimism.
But the middle of the infield is at the literal center of things. Shortstop J.P. Crawford, the team's No. 1 draft pick in 2013, finished last season at Triple-A Lehigh Valley. At some point he is going to make the leap to the majors. And at some point the organization is going to have to make a decision about Hernandez and his double-play partner, shortstop Freddy Galvis.
They are Venezuelans, and friends. Galvis is 27, Hernandez 26. Both have their strengths - Hernandez at the plate (he also clubbed a National League-leading 11 triples last season), Galvis in the field.
Sooner or later something is going to have to give, which is where the 70-year-old Bowa comes in.
He was once the Phillies' shortstop himself, making five All-Star teams and playing on the 1980 world championship club while spending the first 12 of his 16 major league seasons in Philadelphia. Bowa, who also managed the Phils from 2001-04, works with all the infielders now. He tirelessly hits fungoes to them before games. He encourages. He cajoles. He drops F-bombs as the situation requires.
"I got a lot of satisfaction out of watching Freddy and Cesar last year," he said, adding that he was far less satisfied with third baseman Maikel Franco, who in his mind regressed defensively.
"It had nothing to do with ability," Bowa said. "He's got more ability than anybody, probably. It's the lack of concentration. ... He's got to be better this year than he was last year."
Galvis, on the other hand, arrived in spring training determined to improve upon a 2015 season in which he made 17 errors, far too many for a player of his defensive ability. He managed to slice that total to eight, and at one point enjoyed a 50-game errorless streak.
"He was as good as anybody in the league, catching the ball," Bowa said.
Galvis was somehow denied the Gold Glove, which went to San Francisco's Brandon Crawford. And at the plate the 5-10, 185-pound Galvis hit a stunning 20 home runs, fourth-most on the team. His batting average (.241) and on-base percentage (.274) were both subpar, however.
Bowa was not the least bit surprised by Galvis' bounce-back year, and believes Hernandez's turnaround was not solely due to the benching and pep talk in Minnesota. Mackanin called both players into his office early in the season and told them how much the organization liked J.P. Crawford, and how they are competing for jobs (perhaps even with each other).
Crawford might not be in the 2017 Opening Day lineup - he did, after all, hit .248 in 36 games at Triple-A last year, after his promotion from Double-A Reading - but he will crack it soon enough.
And when he does Galvis could switch to second, as he has played that position before. Or maybe Hernandez holds him off, based on his superior offensive skills. Maybe one of them winds up in a utility role, or elsewhere. (It's also possible both will be jettisoned, as second baseman Scott Kingery, a second-round pick in 2015, topped out at Reading last year.)
But for now, it's a healthy situation.
"I really believe competition makes your team and your organization much better," Bowa said. "These guys know that there are kids coming up, so they've got to step it up."
One thing seems certain - Bowa will remain right in the middle of things, just as he's always been.