What a spectacle: Phillies starter Worley

THERE ARE TIMES when big-league success announces itself well in advance, trumpets sounding from the lower levels of the system, the eventual promotion to the majors greeted by hosannas all around.

Then there's Vance Worley.

When spring training started, the 23-year-old righthander was thought of, if he was thought of at all, as the guy with the goggle-like glasses, the mohawk haircut and the "Vanimal" nickname.

At the time, he had a losing record (20-21) and a high earned run average (4.00) in three minor league seasons. Which followed three undistinguished seasons at Long Beach State, capped off by going 7-4 with a 4.27 ERA in his final season.

Nothing tangible suggested that he'd step into the Phillies gilded rotation after injuries to Joe Blanton and Roy Oswalt created an opportunity, that he would be 8-1, 2.85 going into his next scheduled start Thursday against the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks at Citizens Bank Park.

Except that Worley isn't surprised. And neither are many of the people who have followed him along the way. Not Troy Buckley, the college pitching coach who recruited him, now the head coach at Long Beach State. Not Nationals second baseman Danny Espinosa, his Dirtbags teammate. Not Joey Davis, the Phillies scout who recommended him out of McClatchy High in Sacramento, Calif., in 2005. Not Phils scouting director Marti Wolever, who drafted him in the third round in 2008.

Baseball is a game of numbers, yes, but this is the story of a player for whom the numbers didn't tell the whole story. And even now, when talking about his breakthrough season, the conversation always comes down to such traits as confidence and fearlessness, which aren't easily weighed or measured or calibrated.

Davis said Worley was quiet coming out of high school. Buckley remembers him as being shy. It didn't help that, in his final high school start, he suffered a significant elbow strain. The Phillies took him in the 20th round anyway, but signing bonuses are low at that point in the draft, and he decided to go to college instead.

Buckley saw the confidence grow as Worley regained his health. Worley says the strength coach at Long Beach State first called him "Vanimal," but he didn't shy away from it, even though he took some grief. Especially when he had the moniker stitched onto his gloves.

"My teammates knew me as that. They joked around with me. 'Aw, yeah, this guy's got a stupid nickname.' But at the same time, I was like, 'I was cool enough to get a nickname. Why didn't you get a nickname? I work out hard. You don't. OK,' " he said casually before Sunday's game was rained out.

It's an offhanded cockiness he acknowledged he had to learn.

"It did develop more each year in college. That was a big learning experience for me, both on and off the field. If you're not confident, it's hard to play this game. It's not necessarily cocky, but it's knowing you can go out there and you belong," he said.

"Some people can [learn that], and some people can't. You see it in the guys in the minor leagues. Guys that have the ability to be here, but they're not strong mentally and they don't make it. So it's something you have to learn to deal with. If you lose a game, you have to be able to come back your next outing and do well, or show that you can be there. You're not going to be perfect every time, but to show even when you don't have your best stuff that you can play."

The mohawk has also become part of the persona he's embraced, but he believes that, too, is misinterpreted.

"I'd always had longer hair. But we went down to Florida last year and played the Marlins, and it was so hot down there," he explained. "We were throwing the Frisbee around, doing our conditioning, and my glasses were steaming up and my hair was in my eyes. And I said, 'I can't do this.' "

A barber was on duty in the Sun Life Stadium clubhouse. Worley had seen players with a mohawk, thought better of it, and got a modified cut.

"And I come back into the clubhouse, and J.C. Romero says, 'Are you an idiot? You should have done the whole mohawk,' " he recalled. "So this year when I got back up, when we went back down there, I had the guy cut a mohawk for me. And it stuck with me. I sweat a lot, and it helps out with the hotter weather. I'm sure by the end of the year I'll start growing my hair out a little bit."

These days Worley can laugh and say his numbers "sucked" in college and the minors, which is overstating the case. In retrospect, an entire spectrum of opinions explains why he has been so much more effective facing the world's best hitters.

Davis: "To be fair, he got moved up really fast. He was pitching in Double A ball at a young age [21], thrown to the wolves. And I think the reason we did that was we knew his makeup and we knew he could handle it. They kind of challenged him. You look at the average age of kids in Reading, compared to when Vance was there, and he was really young."

Espinosa: "I thought in college most of it was metal bats. He'd throw really well and jam someone, and it would be a base hit. In the minors, too. I remember facing him and we hit him hard once. But other than that, it was kind of stick-with-them, you know what I mean?"

Buckley: "I think the first part was him getting over the question mark of being injured. With any young kid, there's always that level of concern. I think there was some apprehension in that process. What I tried to do with him, and maybe he didn't know it at the time, I tried to make sure that health was his first priority. And that was by throwing four-seam fastballs instead of two-seam fastballs; that's by not throwing a slider but keeping his curveball. Adding more value to the changeup. Which in the big picture are all better for long-term health.

"If you were to just look at his numbers as far as pitch percentages, we pitched with that primary pitch, which is his fastball. Now, the problem is that everybody knew it was coming. Everybody knows what we do. And when he wasn't very good with his command, guys were going to cheat and get to it, and the defense isn't always that great, and the aluminum bat and all that stuff."

Wolever: "We just liked the competitiveness and the makeup. Sometimes that and the ability to pitch play a little bit higher than the tools themselves. He's always competed. He's always taken the ball whenever it was his turn. He's done whatever role he's been asked."

Worley always believed he was better than his statistics suggested.

"You know, I know the numbers didn't show exactly what I was capable of. But that's on paper," he said. "You have to see what's actually going on out there. I was never a big strikeout guy. I really don't care for strikeouts. I'd rather get people to ground out on a couple pitches or pop up. As far as flashing big velocity numbers, if you need it, then use it. But why pitch as hard as you can all the time when you're a starter and you need to be able to drag it out a little bit and go deeper into games?"

Baseball's history is littered with players who burst onto the scene and then quickly faded. There are reasons, though, that some have always believed more was there than met the eye.

Over the last couple of years, he has improved his ability to locate his fastball. He's added a cutter this season. His changeup is better.

"I'm able to pitch. I don't have to throw," he said. "That's what pitching is. If you go out there and throw, you're going to get hit, because you're not locating. Pitching is being able to sink, cut, change speeds and hit your spots."

And now, for the first time since high school, he also has some numbers to show for it.