CITIZENS BANK PARK — Vance Worley goes seven. Michael Stutes pitches the eighth. Antonio Bastardo closes it out in the ninth.
You think Charlie Manuel and Rich Dubee envisioned that in spring training?
All the young guns did was limit big, bad Boston to one earned run in the Phillies 2-1 victory. The kids are all right, indeed.
“We’re trying to make names for ourselves and show we belong here,” Worley said.
Winning is contagious, they say, and what guys named Halladay, Lee, and Hamels have done this year seems to have trickled down. The young guns have soaked it up like sponges.
“We have some guys, that, if you can’t learn just by watching ‘em, you need to go to school,” said Charlie Manuel.
Before Wednesday night’s game, Manuel talked about how facing the best offense in baseball would be a good test for Worley. He passed the exam with flying colors. For the first time in his major league career, the righty from Sacramento lasted longer than six innings. He surrendered just one run on five hits, striking out five, on 116 pitches.
”It was a matter of getting comfortable and not trying to do too much,” Worley said.
Facing Boston didn’t seem too comforting on the surface. Despite getting shut out in the series opener, the Red Sox still had a team batting average of .275, tops in the big leagues. With slugger David Ortiz in the lineup, the Phillies rookie had to stare down a murderer’s row of Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Youkilis, and Big Papi in that order. Worley certainly made an impression on Ortiz.
“He really looks like he’s been around for a long time,” Ortiz told reporters afterward. “He must be listening to those big starters over there, it’s rubbing off on him.”
Worley had spent a couple of summers pitching in the prestigious Cape Cod League, and watched a lot of the Red Sox. He acknowledged that it was pretty cool to now face them.
In fact, Worley sent a ball over to the Sox clubhouse to have signed. He was mainly after Dustin Pedroia’s autograph. Pedroia is also from Sacramento.
“But he won’t give me one until I meet him,” said Worley. “And then I went up and in on him, so I don’t know how happy he is about that.”
Worley brushed him back, in the second baseman’s first at-bat. Doubtful he’ll be getting that signature any time soon.
Then Worley gave way to Stutes and Bastardo.
“I can always trust those guys,” the starter said.
This was Stutes’s eighth: fly out, foul out, groundout; a snappy, 1-2-3 inning that took all of 12 pitches.
This was Bastardo’s ninth: pop out, pop out, foul out — door slammed shut with all of 10 pitches. Ballgame over.
Like Worley facing Pedroia and the Red Sox, Bastardo, had a, “How cool is this?” moment himself. With one away in the ninth inning of a one run game, the 25-year-old native of Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic was on the mound staring down David Ortiz.
Big Papi is a national hero in the Dominican. And Bastardo grew up watching Papi.
“I’ve been watching him for 14 years,” the Phils young reliever said. “Watching him hit home runs on TV.”
Yeah, Papi is so big in the Dominican that Red Sox games are televised there.
But, Bastardo was undaunted.
“I wasn’t thinking about any of that, I was thinking about getting him out. That’s my job,” he said. Get him out he did. Papi swung mightily, and hit a sky-high pop up that Jimmy Rollins settled under in shallow left field.
After all, Bastardo would admit later, “my favorite player was Pedro Martinez.”
Do you realize, the Phillies are now 44-1 when leading after eight innings?
“It shows the kind of job the back of our bullpen has done,” Manuel said. “I’m very proud of the back end of our bullpen.”
Thanks to injuries, Stutes and Bastardo are now that back end. The Phillies have been through three closers already this year, and we’ve just reached the season’s midpoint. Injuries have a way of decimating the best laid plans. And yet, the Phillies are a season-high 21 games above .500. They continue to find ways to win. They always find ways to win.
“That’s the atmosphere,” Worley explains. “It doesn’t matter how we win, just as long as we win.”
School is always in session. The young guns have been taking notes.
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