Vance Worley, Raul Ibanez Help Phillies to 20th Win
By: Mike Reisman
Let's play a game to start off this post. Quick, think of any Phillie that you think would be the biggest contributers in a win at this point in the season. Were you thinking of Vance Worley or Raul Ibanez? If you were, give yourself a pat on the back, but if not, don't worry, not many people would have chosen someone who has just three career major league starts, or someone who broke his 14 day hitless streak yesterday. However, tonight it was these two who helped the Phillies defeat Jayson Werth and the Nationals (in decisive fashion too) for the second night in a row.
The Phillies opened the game slowly, giving Worley the Cole Hamels treatment for the first five innings. They finally broke open the scoring in the bottom of the 5th when Raul Ibanez hit his second homer of the year, a solo shot making it 1-0. The Phillies would score two more runs before the inning would end, giving them a 3-0 lead.
The Nationals would score in the top of the 6th on Vance Worley's first earned run of the year, a double by Adam Laroche.
The Phillies would answer in their half of the 6th, scoring four runs off of two singles and an error, making the game 7-1 after six innings. From then on, the Phillies bullpen would take over and leave off where Worley started, allowing just three base-runners in the 7th and 8th innings. But then came the 9th.
Danys Baez, AKA the Phillies equivalent to that little leaguer that only plays because he has to, came in to start the 9th, and close out the game. Of course, with Baez nothing is easy and after only one pitch a runner was on. After miraculously striking out two hitters, he gave up Matt Stairs' 100th pinch-hit (congrats) and first hit of the year, and then to make matters worse he gave up a three run home run to rookie Danny Espinosa.
The game would end with a score of Phillies 7, Nationals 4 as Vance Worley would get his second win, and Jason Marquis would get his first loss.
Since I'm still on the topic, let's talk about Danys Baez. Why is he on the team? Let me throw some stats out to show just how bad he is. His ERA in the past three years? 5.31. His record in those same three years is a disgraceful 7-16, while his strikeout to walk ratio is an unimpressive 1.31. Baez had been doing well this year so it's not surprising he finally had a bad game. Now, I may be acting a little bit too critically, but this is an acquisition the Phillies never should have made, and somehow they still don't realize it.
Now we go from bad pitcher to good pitcher as we talk about the great Vance Worley. Worley has been great so far since coming up, having his ERA at a mere 0.75 after today's game, and his WHIP at an impressive 0.83. Worley may just be doing well now because nobody had seen him, but if he can continue to strikeout seven batters like he did tonight, he may have a chance to stay around even after Blanton returns.
Finally we get to Raul Ibanez, who was very impressive, especially after a 0-35 streak. Ibanez' game tonight shows that his streak was less of a decrease in his ability, but more so in his confidence. If you can come back and go 3-4 with a homer just one day after ending a two-week hitless streak, clearly you are capable of hitting, just maybe your mindset is wrong. Though every day may not be like this for Ibanez, he is definitely able to have more games like this, and be a solid starter. Now that it looks like he has broken out of his slump, expect to see more of the old Raul Ibanez.
This win gives the Phillies 20 on the year, making them the first team in the NL to reach that mark. They play game three of this series tomorrow at 7:05 with Roy Halladay taking on John Lannan.