joel Lofland's List: Philadelphia Sports

The 1980 Season

Despite finishing a distant fourth in the divisional race, the 1979 Phillies had ended that season on an uptick, winning 18 of 29 September games under farm director-turned-manager Dallas Green. Green made no signficant changes in the club during spring training in 1980, though he brought two youngsters - outfielder Lonnie Smith and catcher Keith Moreland - north in April and added promising rookie starting pitcher Bob Walk in May.  

Walk's debut on May 26 was the Phillies' fifth win in a row, their first consistent move away from .500 in the young season. The streak brought them to six games over, but they were still at six games over (and in third place) almost three months later, when Walk beat the Mets on August 16 to run his record to 9-2. The other bright spots were the consistently brilliant Steve Carlton, eventual MVP Mike Schmidt, Moreland (who caught fire in July and August), and Smith, who took over left field more and more from an aging and hurting Greg Luzinski. Overall, however, the rest of the Phillie bats were anemic well into August.