Moyer sees Vargas as providing help in a hurry
PHILADELPHIA >> There were hugs and camera mugs throughout a downstairs interview room Saturday as members of the Phillies’
2009 World Series losers (sorry, National League champions) gathered on a day of celebration.
Simultaneous to Bobby Abreu’s Phillies Wall of Fame induction day, the 2009 team was honored on this annual alumni weekend.
That club, like the World Series winners of the historic season before, of course, had two lefthanded starting pitchers in young Cole Hamels and, um, seasoned Jamie Moyer, something that has been rare for Phillies teams since. At least it was until the last week.
Longtime veteran lefty Jason Vargas started his first game as a Phillie Friday night and fared quite well, going an out deep into the seventh inning, allowing two earned runs on only five hits, while striking out five Chicago White Sox and walking but one.
Vargas was long gone before the Phillies finally went down 4-3 in
15 innings. But his game was certainly encouraging for the team’s immediate future.
And the Phillies need all the pitching encouragement they can get.
The bullpen continues to be a medical nightmare, with Adam Morgan the latest addition to an injured list that includes Seranthony Dominguez, Pat Neshek, Victor Arano and done-for-theyear relievers Tommy Hunter and David Robertson. In addition, Hector Neris has been unavailable for this White Sox series while serving a three-game suspension.
If it weren’t for failed starters Nick Pivetta and Zach Eflin, and newcomers Mike Morin and Blake Parker, the Phillies would barely have a bullpen at all.
But Eflin and Pivetta has really helped in relief, something made partially possible by Vargas and fellow lefty starter Drew Smyly, who missed the previous two seasons due to elbow problems and Tommy John surgery until the Phillies rescued him out of Triple A last month. He has been fairly brilliant in two starts after getting rescued.
With the exception of Morgan’s stop-and-go early Phillies career as a starter – one also coming off severe elbow surgery – the club didn’t have much of a presence as far as a left-handed starter after Cole Hamels was sent to Texas at the
2015 non-waiver trade deadline. And it didn’t have a two-man effective lefty starting duo since Hamels and Cliff Lee the year before that.
So what’s taken the Phillies so long to get back to at least a semblance of a left-handed starting pitching tandem?
“It’s cyclical,” the now 56-yearold Moyer guessed Saturday. “There’s another cycle. I don’t follow this organization to its depths anymore, but I’m wondering what they have in their system, too. In Triple-A, Double-A, Single-A ... I don’t know.”
Moyer, who spent four full seasons and part of another late in his career in Philadelphia, and served for a short time as a team broadcaster after retiring in 2010, was calling into question the organization’s seeming dearth of lefthanded starting pitching. But he also knew that the Phillies organization was fairly bereft of a lot of things as the glory years were winding down earlier this decade.
Besides, Moyer knows youthful lefty starters aren’t something that grows easily on farm system trees.
“To me, left-handers are better in the latter part of their careers than they are in the beginning of their careers,” Moyer said. “Just an opinion, but I base it in part on me. I was a very serviceable pitcher for the first five or six years and the numbers show it.”
That said, Moyer points out he’s been away from the game in recent years, saying he’ll put major league baseball games on TV at home “for background noise.”
But he does remember Vargas from earlier in his career. And while the current version of 85 mph control stuff Vargas might remind fans of Jamie Moyer, Moyer himself remembers him in another way.
“He’s older now,” Moyer said of Vargas. “I’m sure he would be the first one to admit that to you. He’d say, ‘I have more experience, I have more confidence; I’m a different pitcher. I’ve grown.
“He’s 36? That’s old now. He should be in a wheelchair, right? It’s a young man’s game now. But I remember watching him a couple of years ago in Kansas City, he went on a really good run. He got the ball and threw it, got the ball and threw it. There was no dilly-dallying: ‘I’m going to cram it down your throat. Here I come. Good Luck.’
“Pace ... he had it.”
••• Another Phillies elder named Gabe Kapler was impressed by the more recent version of Vargas Friday night.
“Just incredibly crafty,” Kapler raved. “Very competitive, very coherent. He showed up big for us yesterday. Really gave us a chance to win that game.”
•••
NOTES >> Scott Kingery got a rare non-start, primarily because of a pained ankle. “He felt a little (soreness) in his ankle last night, no big deal,” Kapler said. “And then he got hit there (during pre-game). Nothing to be concerned about at all, just managing some discomfort.” ... Smyly gets his third Phillies start Sunday, opposing Chicago’s Reynaldo Lopez in a 1 o’clock start.w