I was wondering if Vicente Padilla was a good pitcher to hang onto, or get a more reliable pitcher?
We don’t know how reliable Padilla is (or will be) because he doesn’t have a reliable track record. But watching him throw that nasty darting sinking sailing stuff Wednesday night, I’m certain he’s worth a shot.
Plenty of guys with nasty stuff run into problems. They walk too many, or begin tipping their delivery, or tend to freeze up in pressure situations, or… you know, there are a million more things that could go wrong. We don’t know if Padilla will be done in by any of them. But he we do know that right now he’s got great stuff, good velocity, a tough delivery and he seems to know what he’s doing.
The only question is why he wasn’t in the Phillies’ starting plans from the start of spring training.