As manager Pete Mackanin sat down in the Phillies' press room Thursday following one of the most dominant starting pitching performances in team history — and really in major-league history — he delivered quite an understatement.
"Well it looks like we made a pretty good trade, I'd say," Mackanin said.
Uh, yeah … so far, so good.
Vince Velasquez, the centerpiece of the Phillies' return in the Ken Giles-to-Houston trade this past offseason, pitched the game of his life in his first start in front of the Citizens Bank Park crowd. Velasquez threw a three-hit shutout with 16 strikeouts and no walks against an overmatched Padres lineup in a 3-0 Phillies win (see Instant Replay).
In doing so, Vinny from Philly became the first Phillies pitcher in recorded history to strike out more than 12 batters in a game without allowing a run or walk.
Velasquez also became just the sixth pitcher in MLB history to strike out at least 16, allow no runs or walks and three or fewer hits, joining Roger Clemens, Kerry Wood, Max Scherzer, Johan Santana and Corey Kluber. Four of those guys are Cy Young winners. The other, Wood, did it in a game many consider to be the best game ever pitched.
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It was a special, nearly unprecedented afternoon. And Velasquez did it by throwing fastball after fastball after fastball.
"See if they can hit it … 96, 97 (mph), they were fouling it off," Velasquez said. "I'm not going to fix it. If they were doing something I'd probably adjust just like I did in the middle innings. Once you use your secondary pitches it just makes your fastball that much better.
"It was a great day today. Everything was just kind of clicking. It's not cold like it was in New York (his first start). It was pretty fun to pitch today.
"I'm still kind of relieved a little bit. My face doesn't show it, but I'm fully excited. Man … it's still hitting me."
Velasquez threw a career-high 113 pitches and 76 of them were fastballs. The pitch averaged 95.5 mph and reached as high as 97.4. Mackanin thought about turning to the bullpen in the ninth inning after Velasquez had thrown 102 pitches through eight, but allowed him to stay in the game. It wasn't a decision he came to regret, as Velasquez set down the side in order. He retired 14 in a row to end the game and nine of his last 12 outs were strikeouts. Velasquez lost nothing off his heater as the game continued on, finishing with a ridiculous 27 swings-and-misses.
Velasquez's 25 strikeouts through his first two starts as a Phillie is a franchise record. It also leads all of baseball this season for what has been the majors' best, and most surprising, starting pitching staff through 10 games.
"It's easy," catcher Cameron Rupp said of catching Velasquez. "I don't think it matters what (sign) you put down when you've got stuff like that and you're hitting your spots. It didn't matter what I was putting down, he was going for the kill right away.
"That's the competitor he is, he's got a little bit of edge to him. He's coming after you; he's not showing any factors that he's giving in to you. Like I said, he goes for the kill immediately."
Velasquez's teammates were in awe of the performance. Rotation-mate Charlie Morton, who's into advanced stats, paused a conversation and said, "Hold on, let's check something out real quick," and used his cell phone to pull up Velasquez's pitch chart on BrooksBaseball.net.
"He threw 80 percent fastballs," Morton said. "That's unreal."
For Rupp, it's a bit of an adjustment working with a pitcher who relies so much on his heater, but he wasn't about to fix something that wasn't broken.
"You want to establish your fastball command first," Rupp said, "but it got to a point where I was thinking I kinda want to mix in a breaking ball here but I don't need to. He was blowing everybody's doors off with [his fastball]. They've got a couple good hitters over there. Wil Myers is a good fastball hitter and you see what he did today."
It was an extension of what the Padres did all series: swing and miss. In this four-game set, the Padres went 19 for 123 (.154) with 47 strikeouts.
Aaron Nola started the series with a nine-strikeout, no-walk performance. Morton followed with 6⅔ scoreless innings. Jerad Eickhoff struck out nine without a walk in seven shutout innings Wednesday night. Velasquez topped them all in the series finale.
"Eick and Vince are very similar pitchers," Rupp said. "Vince throws a little bit harder. Eick went out last night and threw seven shutout. Last two nights were about as good as it gets. Morton threw seven shutout. They're battling against each other. Nola, since he got here he's been good."
Morton said the reason the Phillies' all-righty rotation has worked so well the first 10 games is because each pitcher offers a different style and each of them has a big-time curveball.
Mackanin said something similar.
"In a given series," Mackanin said, "when you're facing a team in three games, you have a guy like (Jeremy) Hellickson who mixes it up real well; you have a guy like Nola who pinpoints his fastball and throws his breaking ball; and then you get a guy like Velasquez. It is good to do that. It screws hitters up."
It has so far. But let's keep things in perspective — the season is 10 games old. Mackanin cautioned that expectations should be tempered, but also added that Velasquez in both starts has had the command to match his premium stuff.
It wasn't a huge surprise to see Velasquez, and Eickhoff before him, dominate a weak Padres lineup. San Diego had never before seen either pitcher. Even with all the video teams have at their disposal these days, that can still play a role in a pitcher's success. We've seen it time and again in recent years when the Phillies face even an average starting pitcher for the first time.
"I'm sure that's a factor," Mackanin said. "I know when we face pitchers we haven't seen before, everybody tries to get as much video as you can. However, when you look at Velasquez today, his stuff was pretty much overpowering and well located. You can know what's coming. But if it's well located, it's still tough to hit. If he makes mistakes over the plate too often, he'll get hit like everyone else does. But he's shown exceptional command of his fastball and his breaking ball. He threw some great changeups, as well."
Rupp, when asked to picture himself facing Velasquez for the first time instead of catching him, had a different take.
"When a guy's throwing 96-97, standing in there, it doesn't matter if you've seen him once or five or six different times," he said. "Especially with his secondary stuff, if he goes out and throws like he did today, it doesn't matter who's standing in the box."
In this series, it did matter that hitters on a potential 100-loss Padres team were standing in the box. But you can play only the teams on your schedule. The next two series — at home against the Nationals and Mets — should show a little more about where the Phillies' pitching staff truly is.
"I think the fact that people don't really have any expectations for us means we want to surprise a lot of people," Rupp said, minutes after Velasquez compared this Phillies squad to his 2015 Astros. "We've got a big weekend with Washington coming to town. They've got a good lineup and some good arms. It's gonna be a good test for us."
Velasquez has gotten A-pluses on each of his first two tests with the Phillies. Meanwhile, Giles failed to win the closer's job in Houston out of camp and has allowed three homers and five runs in 3⅔ innings. The early returns on the first trade Matt Klentak executed as Phillies GM have been strong.