For starters, Phils have strength in rotation
Jeremy Hellickson stared down Stephen Strasburg, pitch for pitch, before leaving after five impressive innings with a right forearm cramp.
PHILADELPHIA >> For the hype, for the potential, for the way the press carried on, there will be nothing like the offseason of 2010-2011 and how the Phillies plotted out a pitching rotation.
Not content to have Cole Hamels, once a World Series MVP, or Roy Halladay, a Hall of Famer to be, or Roy Oswalt, by then a three-time All-Star, there were the Phillies spending another $120,000,000 on Cliff Lee. Combined, they would produce baseball perfection, or so went the fantasies. They were called the Four Aces, the best rotation ever assembled. With Joe Blanton, they would sit for magazine-cover portraits. They would inspire lines at the ticket windows. They would create a stir. The Phillies don’t build that way anymore. Who does? Yet quietly, if deliberately, they have assembled a rotation that has the chance to be more than interesting.
“When our pitching gets going, our guys can throw,” said Howie Kendrick the other night. “We have a good bullpen. And I think the biggest thing is that, with the pieces we have, guys can swing the bat and we can get some guys out.”
Kendrick last played for the Dodgers, a franchise legendary for its development of pitchers. And while he hadn’t been around long enough to see the rotation be tested more than once, he’s seen enough to know that it has a chance to be special. That’s what it was Sunday, when Jeremy Hellickson stared down Stephen Strasburg, pitch for pitch, before leaving after five impressive innings with a right forearm cramp.
“He was cruising,” Pete Mackanin said.
To a point, so is the Phillies’ pitching rotation. Consider the starts in what would become a 3-3 start after a 4-3 victory over the Washington Nationals:
• Hellickson allowed one run and walked one in five innings on Opening Day in Cincinnati.
• Jerad Eickhoff walked one in 6.2 innings, allowing two hits.
• Clay Buchholz sputtered, lasting five innings, surrendering eight hits.
• Despite permitting a pair of two-run homers to the Nationals, Vince Velasquez struck out 10 in four innings.
• Aaron Nola went six innings, striking out seven, showing the velocity and location that allowed him to dominate early last season.
• And Hellickson lowered his ERA to 0.90, being touched for just one hit in is five innings Sunday, throwing 44 of his 70 pitches for strikes.
“My fastball command was probably the best it’s been in a while,” Hellickson said. “I didn’t make too many mistakes up in the zone. I got a lot of help from the defense. So everything was pretty good tonight.”
The Phillies may not have expected Hellickson to be so strong this season. But they were willing to give him the $17.2 million qualifying offer after his 12-10, 3.71 ERA effort in 2016. So his early excellence was at least in the budget. But it was what happened a night earlier, when Nola flashed the form that he’d shown in his 6-2 rookie year and then again early last year, that demanded attention. Even after he was presented with a 12-0 lead after one inning, Nola struck out the side in the second, pitching with confidence and command.
“That was big,” Mackanin said. “A shutdown inning after you score a lot of runs is important for anybody. When he did that, I felt like he was going to coast a little bit the rest of the way. He certainly pitched a lot better than we’ve seen him. Hopefully that will give him enough confidence to carry that through. He has better velocity than he had last year. We’re looking forward to him having a lot of success.”
Despite Nola’s resurgence, Mackanin was oddly hesitant to celebrate after one turn through the rotation. It could be because he still disapproves of Velasquez’s urge to overpower every hitter, aware that too many strikeouts too early can balloon pitch counts and strain bullpens. And Buchholz’s start was flat.
“I’m happy for tonight, more than anything,” he said, after Nola’s effort, choosing not to include the rest of his starters in the conversation. “It was fun.”
Though the rotation is less than magazine-cover worthy, it was not built by accident. The Phils are paying Hellickson that $17.2 million. Buchholz will make $13.5 on a one-year deal. Nola was the seventh overall pick in the 2014 draft. Never willing to simply give away Hamels, the gifted Eickhoff arrived in that deal with Texas. And it cost Ken Giles, a farm-system prize with what seemed like star potential, to help land Velasquez from Houston.
So the rotation was built with plenty of cash, achievement and potential. In that, it should be good. How good? Who knows? It might even be good enough to create another stir.