Phillies hire Matt Stairs as hitting coach

Remember when Matt Stairs told reporters, “I only try to hit home runs,” when he was a Phillie back when the team was making World Series runs?

Stairs famously hit a two-run homer in the NLCS to put Philly ahead against the Dodgers en route to the 2008 World Series crown.

He’s the Phillies newest hitting coach.

Philadelphia hit the seventh fewest home runs in baseball last season despite playing in one of the most hitter-friendly parks in the majors. Stairs will obviously be working to help hitter of all kinds reach base, but the prospects of the homer numbers going up does look more promising with Stairs at the helm.

Stairs is48-year-old and was an extremely well-traveled role player.He played parts of 19 seasons in the major leagues with 12 different teams, including parts of two seasons (2008-09) with the Phillies when the team went to back-to-back World Series.

During his career he batted .262 with 265 home runs, 899 RBI, a .356 on-base percentage and a .477 slugging percentage in 1,895 career games.

His 23 career pinch home runs rank first in major league history. Stairs had spent the last three seasonsas a color commentator on Phillies broadcasts.