Padilla Spectacular in Starting Debut as Phils Earn First Win of Season

ATLANTA — Following a magnificent spring where he struck out 21 batters in 23 innings and a triple-A season where he went 7-0 with a 1.69 ERA during a 5-0 August, Vicente Padilla came into his first major league start, Wednesday night at Turner Field, with some high acclaim. In fact, the praise for the young right hander with nasty stuff came from such lofty players it's a wonder the Braves didn't just wave a white flag of surrender instead of taking the field for the second game of the season.

"Right now he's the best pitcher in baseball," gushed perennial all-star Barry Larkin after facing the Nicaraguan during the spring.

	Vicente Padilla struck out seven and allowed just three hits in six innings in his first major league start, Wednesday night. (AP)

However, Padilla was involved in a fight to make the club as the fifth starter during the spring in a competition against minor leaguer Brett Myers, current No. 5 David Coggin, reliever Cliff Politte and newly acquired Milwaukee Brewer Nelson Figueroa. The numbers, which don't lie in Padilla's case, had him winning in a walk and when Randy Wolf was placed on the 15-day disabled list, Padilla was bumped up to No. 2.

And here he was just trying to be a No. 5.

"No. 5? He should be competing for the No. 1 position," said Texas' Rafael Palmeiro, who has hit 447 career home runs.

In Wednesday night's 3-1 win over the Atlanta Braves, Padilla made both Larkin and Palmeiro look good.

In Padilla's first start — after 83 relief appearances for the Phillies and Diamondbacks since the end of 1999 — he lasted six innings, allowed three hits while whiffing seven. Of his 104 pitches, 70 were for strikes and if it wasn't for Gary Sheffield, he could have been working on a no-hitter or, at the very least, a shutout. Suffice it to say, he looked very comfortable and not the least bit nervous in his starting debut despite the fact that his family (and perhaps the entire country) were watching at home in Nicaragua.

"I was not nervous, just anxious," he said in Spanish.

Two of the three hits allowed by Padilla were to Sheffield, who cranked a two-strike, leadoff homer in the second to tie the game at 1. But after Sheffield's second blast of the season, Padilla was masterful.

"I felt like I had to make an adjustment at that time instead of trying to throw so hard," Padilla said.

Mission complete.

Of the 24 batters he faced, 17 were greeted with first pitch strikes and 15 — yes, 15! — batters fell to two-strike counts. Aside from the homer and single to Sheffield, the only other Braves to reach against Padilla were via hit batter, walk, an error by Jimmy Rollins and an oops 0-2 single by pitcher Kevin Millwood.

Padilla was en fuego.

His fastball topped out at 97-miles per hour and he routinely threw his cutter in the mid 90s. Couple that with a nasty, 78-miles per hour bender and some of the braves looked like they were facing that super-slow ball from the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Strike one, two, three yer out!

All this helped him retire nine of the first 10 he faced and nine of the last 11 before leaving after six innings.

I prefer to be a starter," Padilla said. "I definitely feel I can be a dominant pitcher. There are a lot of things people haven't seen yet. I know I can improve and get better."

Either way, he impressed his all-star catcher with how hard he threw, especially after getting struck by on the thigh by a hard ground ball hit by Chipper Jones.

	Scott Rolen robs Vinny Castilla from a hit and an RBI during the fourth inning. (AP)

"He was nasty," catcher Mike Lieberthal said. "He just kept running balls in and in and in. Padilla never seems nervous. He always has a bulldog kind of attitude. He was throwing a lot of fastballs and coming after guys.

"I was surprised at his velocity. He still had it after the fifth inning and threw even harder after he got hit by Chipper."

But he wasn't without help. Pat Burrell clubbed a two-out homer into the teeth of a stiff wind blowing in from left field during the fourth inning off Millwood to give Padilla all the runs he needed. Burrell's first homer came two innings after he stroked a two-out double setting the table for a seeing-eye double down the line by Marlon Anderson to open the scoring.

In the sixth, the Phils added another run on back-to-back one-out double by Scott Rolen and Travis Lee, but it was a play in the field by Rolen, not the double, that really helped Padilla.

After Andruw Jones was hit by a 94-mile per hour fastball and Chipper Jones flew out to center, Sheffield stroked his single to right to make it first and third with just one out and Vinny Castilla striding to the plate. In Monday's opener, Castilla whipped a three-run shot off Robert Person to set the tone in the opening day win and would have followed Sheffield's second-inning homer with one of his own if not for the strong wind from left knocking the ball down for a fly out on the warning track.

This time, Castilla lined a tracer that seemed like a sure-bet RBI single until Rolen laid out and snared it for the second out. After making a costly error in Monday's game, the three-time gold glover more than made amends.

"That was the play of the game," Burrell said.

Thanks to solid relief from Joses Santiago and Mesa, it remained that way. Santiago pitched the seventh and the eighth, striking out two and walking one while Mesa nailed down his first save by facing three batters in the ninth.

Meanwhile, Thursday's series finale will be another debut of sorts. Terry Adams, a converted reliever like Padilla, makes his first start as a Phillie against Jason Marquis. Adams came over from the Los Angeles Dodgers after winning 12 games in 2001 and then testing the free-agent market this past winter.

Following Thursday's game, the team heads back to Philadelphia for its home opener on Friday afternoon against the Florida Marlins. Brandon Duckworth takes the hill for the Phils against Julian Tavarez, who, coincidentally, faced the Phils for the Cubs in last season's home opener.

Notes: After getting hit by and throwing out Chipper Jones in the sixth, Padilla stayed in the game and recorded the last two outs of the inning. Manager Larry Bowa wanted to take him out but after throwing some warm-up pitches, Padilla convinced Bowa to allow him to finish the inning.

"It really hurt, especially a little while after I got hit, but I didn't want to come out," he said.

As vaguely stated earlier, Nelson Figueroa was acquired Wednesday by the Milwaukee Brewers. The Phillies designated Figueroa for assignment when camp broke last Saturday after a difficult spring. After going 4-5 with a 3.94 ERA in 19 games (13 starts), Figueroa figured to compete for the fifth starter's job but was beaten out by Padilla and Coggin. When the team acquired left-handed reliever Hector Mercado from Cincinnati, Figueroa was deemed expendable. ... After whiffing three times in the opener, Burrell added two more strikeouts after his homer.

John R. Finger
ComcastSportsNet.com