Larry Bowa is 21 games above .500 since taking over the Phillies in 2001. David Bergman/SI

In the rush to fire Larry Bowa, to rid the woefully underachieving Phillies of their fiery and foul-mouthed managerial icon, general manager Ed Wade needs to consider one question, and one question only.

Will it help? And if Wade, who may be feeling a little uncomfortable about his own job status these days, still can't come up with the answer, he should ask the question again:

Will it help?

Firing a manager is an easy thing to do. Everybody does it. It happens all the time. Joe Torre has been fired. Bobby Cox, too. Some of the best skippers the game has seen have been let go. Most of them have. Two managers have been canned already this season, Houston's Jimy Williams and Arizona's Bob Brenly.

It's easy, and so it's done all the time, but the truth of the matter is, it almost never works. Not to any great degree, anyway. Of all the teams that have fired their managers during the season, according to USA Today, only 13 have made it to the postseason, and only four in the past 20 years.

Granted, many of those teams were in terrible shape before switching managers. They were just looking for a scapegoat. But there is that other type of team, the one that makes the change to "spark" the club onto greater things. Only that usually doesn't work, either.

Yeah, it happened for the Marlins last May, when they dumped Jeff Torborg and brought in baseball lifer Jack McKeon. The Marlins became the second team ever to change a manager midstream and win the World Series. (The other was the '78 Yankees, who went from Billy Martin to Bob Lemon.)

And that's what the Astros are trying to do this season, with lukewarm success so far. The Astros, .500 at the All-Star break, fired Williams and replaced him with Phil Garner. Now they're two games above .500. They're still waiting for that "spark."

A spark is what the feuding Phillies need, badly. No team in baseball, with the possible exception of the Astros, needs it more. The Phillies strike out way too much (749 times, fourth in the 16-team NL), they aren't hitting when it counts (a .238 average with runners in scoring position, 14th in the NL and 28th in baseball) and their pitching is not good (a 4.53 ERA, 13th in the NL).

Injuries have been a big reason for the Phillies' struggles. Injuries always are a problem. But this team, as everyone knows, is way too talented to be just two games above .500. Philadelphia is lacking something. It needs that spark.

Will firing Bowa do it?

Bowa is a hothead. He demands a lot. He screams even more. He's not a nice guy to be around when things are not going how he wants them to go. Sometimes, he's not even all that pleasant to be around when they are.

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Still, is that the problem? Jim Thome, the slugging first baseman, already has struck out 100 times this season. He's hitting .194 with runners in scoring position. He hit just .229 in July.

And Pat Burrell's supposed comeback? He hit .220 in June, .221 in July. He's struck out more than 100 times, too.

Catcher Mike Lieberthal? He's hitting .125 with runners in scoring position.

Kevin Millwood has an ERA near 5.00, and Brett Myers' is worse (5.38). The Phillies have allowed 149 homers this year, the most in baseball. We can go on and on naming guys who aren't playing as well as they should be, and all of them have a lot more say in the outcome of games than Bowa. But, you know, that doesn't answer the question.

Will firing Bowa change things?

Bowa, critics will say, does not create an environment conducive to playing good baseball. Bowa, they say, makes things so uneasy in the clubhouse that players are walking on "pins and needles." Bowa, many say, is a black cloud constantly hovering over the Phillies.

Firing Bowa, 306-285 with the Phillies after a 5-2 win at San Diego on Tuesday, will get rid of all the negativity that surrounds this team. Firing Bowa, they say, could provide that spark.

It's a bad situation, and by the time the Phillies finish this current road trip (they're 2-6 and have five more to play), it could be even worse. Still, after the trip, they play 18 of their next 25 games at home, where the Phillies are 29-24.

It can't be easy to go to work every day and listen to a maniac scream. Negativity never helps. But these players are supposed to be professionals. Highly paid professionals. The Phillies are paying them $93 million, the fifth highest payroll in baseball. As anyone can see, these guys aren't earning their money.

Firing Bowa's not going to change that.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.