Vargas delivers quality debut for Phillies
PHILADELPHIA >> The Phillies went out and got Jason Vargas at the trade deadline to provide reliable, quality innings at the back end of its rotation. For one night, it worked, even if the bullpen didn’t exactly cooperate in a 4-3 loss to the White Sox in 15 innings.
Vargas worked into the seventh against the White Sox Friday, providing the kind of innings the Phillies have desperately need from a starter not named Aaron Nola.
It continues the positive early impression he’s left on his new team.
“One thing that stands out to me is yesterday, he got off the mound and just threw a little bit after the game,” manager Gabe Kapler said pregame. “He was especially professional calling all of his pitches, really in control and it was nice to see a guy who has such a good understanding of his stuff and how to locate it and practice it. Those are the things that stand out to me about Jason, and he came in here and made an incredible first impression on everybody.”
The Phillies got Vargas from the Mets along with a reported $2 million in cash for a low-level
catching prospect ahead of Wednesday’s deadline. The 36-year-old has consistently logged innings in his 14-year career, the antithesis of the hot-and-cold young arms the Phillies have staked their rotation on. With Jake Arrieta limited by a bone spur in his elbow, Drew Smyly’s reclamation project just two starts in and the multi-headed beast of Nick Pivetta-Zach Eflin-Vince Velasquez-Jerad Eickhoff being, politely, confounding, the Phillies need innings. Even from a lefty for whom mid-80s constitutes letting it rip.
And so Vargas was effective Friday. He walked just one batter – his penultimate, James McCann, to lead off the seventh, before the catcher happily erased himself trying to steal third under the watch of Mike Morin. Vargas mainly avoided loud contact, save for one, a changeup that got away against Jose Abreu that the first baseman launched 440 feet to left center.
“I would’ve liked to come out on top in that one, but unfortunately it didn’t go our way,” Vargas said. “Pretty crazy first day as far as seeing what kind of fight they have in trying to ground it out.”
Along the 6.1 innings, he allowed five hits and struck out five. He gave way to a shorthanded bullpen sans suspended closer Hector Neris and recently re-injured Adam Morgan with just eight outs to get.
They didn’t come through, Jose Alvarez eventually blowing the save.
J.T. Realmuto cut down the imprudent McCann at third, and Morin struck out Adam Engel to close out the seventh. Pivetta worked around Yolmer Sanchez’s leadoff triple in the eighth that sliced into a sliver of dirt between the sliding Adam Haseley and the line in left. Pivetta steadied to get a groundout, a strikeout (after a failed squeeze attempt by man Leury Garcia) and a lineout to right.
In the ninth, Juan Nicasio looked to have worked around a one-out double by Eloy Jimenez when he blew a 96-mile-per-hour fastball past McCann on the 10th pitch of their battle. But with just one out to get, Kapler went to Alvarez for the lefty-lefty matchup. He let Ryan Goins leg out an infield single, then Matt Skole, in his first at-bat of the season and 14th career big league plate appearance, lashed an RBI single to tie it, punishing the Phillies for stranding 12 baserunners through nine innings.
With just one hit in the six extra innings, that stat tailed off, as did the offense in a 5-hour, 28-minute affair decided with Roman Quinn on the mound and Vince Velasquez unable to throw out his second runner of the night at the plate by mere inches, Leury Garcia narrowly beating the tag.
Though Kapler emphasized the importance of keeping the momentum rolling against the White Sox before the Phillies hit the road, Vargas’ performance holds promise that extends beyond the night. Vargas crossed the 100-inning threshold for the season, his seventh big-league season having accomplished that. It included, as Kapler delicately mentioned, 10 strikeouts in 6.1 dominant innings against the Phillies June 26.
He may not be the 200-inning workhorse he was in 2011-12 with Seattle, nor the 18-game winner who made an All-Star Game for the Royals in 2017. But he is a valuable, professional arm playing on a team with a desperate, perhaps season-defining lack of them.
“Jason has been around long enough where it’s not just our exposure to him from the other side of the field,” Kapler said. “It’s a guy who we know pitched in the 2014 World Series and who was a staple in that rotation and a guy who has pitched on various stages in multiple markets. We have a knowledge of Jason having played against him, but we also have a knowledge of Jason having watched him play against other clubs, as well.”
I would’ve liked to come out on top in that one, but unfortunately it didn’t go our way. Pretty crazy first day as far as seeing what kind of fight they have in trying to ground it out.