Despite 10 Ks, voluminous pitch count costs Velasquez
PHILADELPHIA » Pete Mackanin has seen good pitchers and he has seen great pitchers. And he has seen enough of them to know when to look to determine the difference.
He looks at them when they are in a little trouble.
“That’s one of the biggest parts of playing at this level: Being prepared,” Mackanin was saying Friday. “It’s being able to execute pitches, staying poised. The key to me is that every pitcher, no matter who it is, always has men on base. Rarely do you see a guy just fly through a lineup. You look at Roy Halladay. Always had men on base. Greg Maddux always had men on base.
“The pitchers who minimize damage are the good ones. So that’s what is important to me.”
The conversation was about the Phillies and their home opener and Vince Velasquez, their starting pitcher. And if the manager didn’t have a hunch, or a fear, or an intuition, that’s how it seemed later, after a 7-6 loss. For there was Velasquez, dominating enough to strike out 10 in four innings, yet just ineffective enough with men on base for Bryce Harper Daniel Murphy to torment with two-run homers.
That was the difference game. So said Velasquez.
“It’s very frustrating to give up the home runs in the first few innings,” he said, “and not give the guys the opportunity to come out on top. It’s just a lack of performance on my end.”
In his fourth career double-figure strikeout game, Velasquez did have his moments of command. But with strikeouts come a fee: A higher pitch count. And he would throw 94 pitches, 57 for strikes, sticking Joely Rodriguez with a 4-0 deficit to begin the fifth.
“Sometimes, he thinks he has to do too much,” Mackanin said. “He thinks he has to overpower hitters. But there is a time and a place to do that. And there is a time and a place to finesse. And he’s got to do that.”
Velasquez was 8-6 for the Phillies last season, averaging a strikeout per inning over his final six starts. By then, the Phils were so protective of him that they would shut him down early, rest his arm, and hope to bring him back stronger and more likely to successfully negotiate that overpower-finesse line. A 2-1 record and 2.75 spring training ERA and him
in
the were encouraging, and so were enough of his pitches Friday. But after Velasquez walked Adam Eaton in the first, Harper drove a 3-2 pitch into the right-field seats. Velasquez would walk Eaton again in the third, fan Harper, but then be taken deep to rightcenter by Murphy.
The Phillies would eventually trail, 7-0, and rally. But they needed more from Velasquez at the precise moments Mackanin seemed earlier to fear.
“I was all over the place,” Velasquez said. “I had no grip. I had no command of my fastball at all. I got 10 strikeouts, but that wasn’t enough.”
In addition to contributing to a deficit that the Phils could not overcome, Velasquez’s inconsistency stretched Mackanin’s bullpen. Rodriguez, in early, would allow a three-run homer to Jayson Werth before Joaquin Benoit, Hector Neris and Jeanmar Gomez would keep the Phils close enough to have the tying run on base in the ninth.
“We had to go to the bullpen early,” Mackanin said, adding, “it puts a strain.”
The Phillies were likely to have a test, given that sitting Cy Young winner Max Scherzer was the Nationals’ starter. Mackanin, however, was not concerned about the starting-pitcher matchup, and was anxious to see how Velasquez fared. He did become the first Phillies pitcher since Cole Hamels in 2006 to strike out 10 within the first for innings. But it was not enough.
“At this level you have to be ready for it,” Mackanin said. “You have to be able to handle it. We’ve seen many pitchers cut through the lineup the first time around, then all of a sudden, they get in trouble after that. I think the key to any successful pitcher, especially a starter, is to limit damage when he gets runners on base.
“How well does he do to get out of it?”
He had his answer Friday: Not well enough.
“I have to do a better job,” Velasquez said. “If I go deep in the game, anything can happen.”