I've never liked Tom Verducci very much, and this article at SI.com, complete with misleading, attention-seeking headline ('Not my fault: After blowing Game 3, Garner jumps ship on Astros'), doesn't help.
He rips his team.
Beautiful. Mind you, the guy says nothing to his team after the game. But he does march into the official interview room and drop these bombs for the media:
"Absolute rotten hitting."
"We might have played 40 innings and it didn't look like we were going to get a runner across the bag."
"It's embarrassing to play like this in front of our hometown."
"I'm really ticked off."
Way to bail on your team, Mr. Manager.
Not once did he credit the Chicago pitchers, especially the relievers, for holding his hitters to a 1-for-33 showing after Jason Lane hit his home run that wasn't in the fourth inning.
Does his team need him to tell them, "Guys, that was absolute rotten hitting"? I doubt it. I'm sure they know. I'm sure the rest of the Astros are as pissed off about it as Garner is. And when you play 162 games, sneak into the playoffs, beat the NL's best team in the NLCS, and go to the World Series, you probably hope for something better than being down 3-0 on account of the fact that your lineup refuses to deliver.
Why should he credit the Chicago pitchers for holding his sorry hitters to an especially sorry 1-for-33 performance, many of those 33 chances a time someone could have won the game? Why should he go to the media with a smile on his face about this? It was a brutally bad showing from the Houston lineup.
Way to show you're in control, skipper.
Way to expect "Scrap Iron" Phil Garner to be a robot, Tom. The same guy that everyone was heaping praise on for managing like he played is now the guy that's being crapped on for being visibly mad that Geoff freaking Blum hit a 14th-inning homer.
Everything Phil Garner said was true, and everything he did was understandable. His team absolutely did not deliver at the plate. They are professional baseball players that were, again, made to look like fools in the biggest games of the season.
And when it suits them, sportswriters love a straight-shooter. When it doesn't, they pounce like tigers on things like this to show just how disgusted they are with the current state of it all. How can this manager show emotion? How can he be upset that his team is taking a dump in the World Series? They only worked all year to get here.
I think Phil Garner threw a chair because he was mad that they were going to blow another game. I think he said the things he said because they'd blown another game. I think Phil Garner doesn't want to lose. And I think that is commendable.