Don’t bash Joe. Not over this. Phillies manager Joe Girardi isn’t getting much love in Philadelphia for giving the city’s fanbase exactly what it wanted: an old-school manager.

Critical pieces from NBC Sports Philly’s Jim Salisbury and The Athletic’s Matt Gelb slam Girardi’s recent surliness and subterfuge instead of praising him for not behaving like a phony media relations dream. Girardi has also received an onslaught from social media and local sports talk.

Here’s what went down:

A couple days ago, Girardi went alpha-dog with the local media after being asked why second baseman Jean Segura did not remain in the game after pinch-hitting Thursday.

Girardi knew the subtext of the question — is Segura injured? —and he didn’t care about playing nice-nice, telling the reporters on Zoom: “Just so you guys know, we’re gonna approach this different. I’ve talked to people in our organization ... just ‘manager’s decision.’ And I’m not gonna share who’s available, or who’s not available, because I think it’s somewhat unfair to us. Just like if you were going to do something, you wouldn’t necessarily share it with a rival reporter.”

Some background: Girardi last weekend lied about the severity of Bryce Harper’s wrist injury, saying Harper’s day off was not injury-related. And soon the struggling Harper was placed on the IL. According to team sources, Girardi this week got the OK from team president Dave Dombrowski to not dispense any more injury news.

There’s more...

A little earlier this month, we saw something that felt so foreign — so Larry Bowa: a manager getting in the grill of his own player. Television cameras showed a dugout confrontation between Girardi and Segura, who just committed two errors. It wasn’t Reggie Jackson vs. Billy Martin. But Girardi was barking in the player’s face, and at one point, Segura had to be restrained by coach Dusty Wathan.

"That's a bench conversation, meant for the bench," said Girardi, who was asked about a half-dozen times about the incident. "You can ask all you want; you got everything you're going to get about it. I'm done with it."

Take a look for yourself:

So, Girardi is warring with the media and chewing out players in front of the world because he’s ticked off that his injury-riddled team keeps sputtering. And, wait, you’re upset over this? Seriously?

Hey, Philly, do you remember the manager who preceded Girardi? Mr. Cuddles himself, Gabe Kapler. Flashback: Two years ago, same player — Segura — dogged it out of the box, leading to Andrew McCutchen getting in a rundown, blowing out his knee and ending his season. And Kapler could not toss the salivating fanbase a crumb of criticism toward Segura, and the fans smashed Kapler for it.

After Kapler got fired, Phillies fans demanded an old-school guy. They demanded a manager who didn’t nurse players’ boo-boos. They demanded a guy who didn’t have that perfect PR spin and smile. In essence, they demanded somebody who wasn’t Kapler, who spoke of the wonders of analytics and gave out hugs as if it were kindergarten and not a major league baseball team.

Quick little sidebar: The Yankees fired Girardi in 2017 for not “connecting” with his players. Yes, that’s how Yankees general manager Brian Cashman termed it... Connecting. That’s an easy translation: Girardi was too old-school for the modern-day player, who apparently really, really needs a heart emoji to play baseball well.

So this is Joe Girardi: old-school to the core, your kind of guy, Philadelphia. And yet you still don’t like him?

So maybe the real question is: Has Philly gone soft?