Yesterday, I was hitting an ATM in a convenience store called Welsh Farms. While waiting for the machine to spit out my last remaining twenty dollar bills (with Peter Gammons printed on the front), my mind wandered, and it occurred to me that the Welsh are the only nationality without a stereotype.
Everyone has heard that the French can't fight and love wine, the Germans are rigid and blonde, the British are stuffy and expert seamen, and Americans are unsophisticated and capitalistic. You can go on and on until you get to the Welsh. About the only thing I could come up with was Catherine Zeta-Jones...
...And as my mind is wandering around, so was my eye, and I spotted a stack of Sports Weekly. There, adorning the cover, was Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, with an accompanying headline:
"Fast-forward Phillies"
So naturally, I stopped in my tracks, grabbed a copy, forked over a buck seventy-five with my recently dispensed cash, and flipped to the article.
It's an interesting read, and Seth Livingstone, the author, paints a picture of a team finally believing in itself, led by a crop of youngsters. Livingstone writes, "These are not your father's Phillies," referring to the organization's ineptitude on the diamond over the last two decades and the forgettable players that filled the rosters of that era.
Cover boys Howard and Utley are discussed extensively, as is Ryan Madson, another of the Phightins youngsters. But suspiciously absent is any mention of Robinson Tejeda, a twenty-three year-old right-handed pitcher who doesn't receive nearly as much credit as he currently deserves for saving the Phillies 2005 season.
In mid-June, left-handed starting pitcher Randy Wolf went down with an elbow injury that would require Tommy John surgery, ending his season and much of next year's as well. At the time, the Phillies had just won 15 of their last seventeen games, including a 12-1 homestand, but they were still a team struggling to find their niche and identity.
Were they the underperforming crew that Philadelphia had little to no phaith in, or were they the team that Ed Wade and Ruben Amaro, Jr. were promising would reach its full potential at any moment? Randy Wolf's injury looked to be a tough blow, one that would be hard to overcome.
But manager Charlie Manuel and pitching coach Rich Dubee turned to Tejeda, a pitcher with moderate minor-league success who had shown some gumption in limited early-summer relief work for the Phillies.
Ideally, the team wanted a left-hander to replace Wolf, but instead, they settled for Tejeda, and everyone can be glad they "settled". Since stepping in for Wolf, Tejeda has started 13 games and in those games, he has pitched 69 innings, allowing only four home runs and a .222 batting average, which adds up to an ERA of 2.87 as a starter. All of Tejeda's starts haven't gotten him mentioned in the same sentences as Cy Young and Sandy Koufax, but he has almost always found a way to get the job done, which is to keep his team in the game.
It was recently announced that Tejeda will miss his next start due to "shoulder discomfort". That is discomforting news to say the least. Newly promoted "untouchable" Gavin Floyd will take Tejeda's start. Tejeda and the Phillies are reporting that the injury is just a minor setback.
In the thick of a chaotic NL Wild Card race, let's just hope that Floyd can fill in for Tejeda half as well as Tejeda has filled in for Wolf.
