Bastardo, Stutes are a relief to Phillies' bullpen corps

Young, ready - and rested. That was the working description of Antonio Bastardo's and Michael Stutes' status on another pristine night for Phillies lefthander Cliff Lee.

Young, ready - and untested. That is the ongoing reality for these two. No one ever planned for Bastardo and Stutes to be sharing the closer's job for the Phillies - not this year, anyway. When you are down to Plan D, you are - by definition - making it up as you go along. Even if it is only a couple of days until Ryan Madson's injured hand heals up, this is still improvisation.

But just because you cannot predict specific injuries, or eventualities, does not mean that you cannot prepare for them. In baseball, when you are talking about the bullpen, you are talking about the least predictable aspect of a roster. Success seems random sometimes when you are talking about relievers. In putting together a bullpen, it is hard to have a better track record than an economist or a weatherman.

Still, you do what you can. In the Phillies' case, that meant bringing more than a dozen of their youngest arms down to Clearwater in January for a few days of seminars led by professor Rich Dubee.

Working title of the minicourse:

"Pitching at the Major League Level."

"It lasted 5 days, I believe it was," said Dubee, the Phillies' pitching coach. "They threw in the bullpen, it might have been twice, just to see where they were, armwise, and just to see what they looked like, deliverywise."

Mostly, though, it was about talking and teaching. Stutes and Bastardo were there, as were Vance Worley, David Herndon and Scott Mathieson - all kids currently on the major league roster, brought there by injury and ineffectiveness and whatnot. Roy Halladay, the workout perfectionist, was a guest lecturer one day. Mostly, though, it was Dubee delivering the hard truths as only he can.

When he was the pitching coach for the Marlins, Dubee said, he did the same thing with their young staff. This time, assistant general manager Chuck LaMar suggested to Dubee that it might be a good idea to try it with this Phillies group, so full of young arms, so full of promise.

"A lot of it was more classroom talk," he said, " . . . about what I thought they needed to be able to do to pitch up here, as far as command of the fastball and a secondary pitch, about holding runners, about what they needed to do about having a program and a plan to take care of their arm.

"That it wasn't going to be baby-sitting up here, that we expect you to be men and take care of themselves and go about their own programs. We'd monitor it, but they had to do it. And how tough it is to play up here and how tough it is to stay up here.

"They were going to get opportunities because it is easier to get up here than it is to stay up here - that's for sure," Dubee said. "We wanted those guys to be aware that, if they did get a shot to get up here, we expected them to come up here and stay up here. We didn't want guys having to go back because they weren't prepared mentally or physically at this level."

Last night, other than some warming up after Lee walked the leadoff batter in the eighth inning of the 5-0 win, Bastardo and Stutes had a quiet night. So far, at least part of their success was born in a classroom in Clearwater in January. Dubee really believes that.

Maybe tonight we will find out whether it transfers to the ninth inning. *