A Look at the Vanimal

By Amy McCormick

Our famous pitching rotation of 2011 was expected to bring home another World Series trophy for this city.  We all know how that worked out.  With injuries for Oswalt and Blanton, we had some holes to fill.  An obvious choice was RHP Vance Worley, who had surprised most of us in September of 2010 when he was able to hold his own on the mound. 

In 2011, Worley posted an 11-3 record with a 3.01 ERA.  More of last season's stats (skip ahead if numbers make your head hurt): 131 2/3 IP, 119 K and 46 BB.  His averaged 8.1 strikeouts, 3.1 walks and 0.7 homeruns per nine innings pitched.  That's the quantitative data, and it's pretty self-explanatory.

In a qualitative sense, Worley was great at locating his sinker and getting called strikes.  Do you remember watching hitters swing and miss?  Neither do I, because it didn't happen often.  Why was that? Well, to begin with, Worley doesn't have much of an off-speed pitch.  It also helped that many batters were facing him for the first time, not knowing exactly what to expect.

What should we expect this season?  From opponents, I think we can expect batters to look alive.  There's a lot of footage of Vance for teams to watch at this point.  If this is the case, then I think it's safe to say that what worked in 2011 will not work in 2012.  In my opinion, he'll need to keep batters guessing - get them to swing and miss pretty consistently - if he wants to continue to be successful.  Called strikes aren't going to cut it; I think we'll see batters getting aggressive.

I like Vance Worley, for a few reasons.  I think he's a talented kid who has potential to be a solid #4 or #5.  I was impressed with him when he was originally called up from Lehigh Valley because a lot of kids his age can buckle under the pressure (looking at you, Dom Brown).  In a post-game interview once, when asked what had gone wrong during the game, he stated, "I sucked." I loved it.  No excuses, no blaming anyone else.  He recognized that his performance that night was just not good enough and that he would need to do better.  It's refreshing to me when a professional athlete admits that openly.  What I want to see is a continued sense of what works and what doesn't. 

There's a lot of chatter about fans expecting Vance to unravel during his sophomore season, and while that is based on previous experiences, I don't think it's a fair expectation for Worley.  I am optimistic that he will recognize that he needs a strong off-speed pitch and that he needs to work the corners.  And who knows - maybe opponents will be too preoccupied preparing to face Roy, Cliff and Cole, and they won't do their homework on Vance.  Stranger things have happened.

I want to see big things from this kid.  I've seen enough that I recognize his talent and skill - now I need for him to prove to me that he can switch things up enough to succeed this season.