A Reason to Follow the Phillies

As a long-time baseball fan, I’m always curious to see who makes it to the Major Leagues from the Mid-Atlantic area. But since I’m also Jewish, I’m also curious to see if anyone of my religious affiliation ever gets to the majors.

This weekend was interesting when I got to work at the Orioles-Philles inter-league series—and Philadelphia came to town with one Jewish pitcher and then called up another after the first game.

Michael Schwimer is a 6-foot 8-inch relief pitcher for the Phillies. He’s 26 and a native of nearby Fairfax, VA. He made his major league debut earlier this season. Schwimer also had some bad luck in his first appearance in Washington on May 4 when Wilson Ramos got the game-winning pinch-hit single in the 11^th inning.

It was easy to see how upset Schwimer was with himself in the locker room that night. He was fighting himself but refused to try and talk his way out of it. He answered all the questions and made a good impressions on some of the tough Philadelphia reporters.

“There’s absolutely no excuses,” he said that night. “I threw a good pitch, and he hit it.”

Schwimer struggled a bit in Friday’s game against the Orioles but pitched very well Sunday. He threw three scoreless innings to help a Philadelphia bullpen that’s been pushed to the limit.

But the Phillies got another relief pitcher over the weekend, their second Jewish guy.

B.J. Rosenberg is a right-hander who got called up late Friday night from Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He didn’t get much time to rest as the Phillies had to put him into Saturday’s contest when it went extra innings.

The 6-foot-3 right-hander showed some good stuff when he came into the game in the 11^th inning of a 4-4 tie. Rosenberg certainly didn’t look nervous, retiring the Orioles in order in that inning.

But things didn’t go so well in the 12^th. Rosenberg walked Chris Davis and then gave up a game-winning two-run homer to Adam Jones as the Orioles pulled out a 6-4 victory.

Afterwards, Rosenberg got some good compliments. In the Baltimore locker room, Jones said that Rosenberg had been throwing well. Phillies manager Charlie Manuel offered more of the same comments.

“That’s a tough spot,” Manuel said. “But at the same time, he was throwing the ball good. He had good stuff on the ball.”

So even though I don’t follow the Phillies much, I’m going to keep an eye on them to see how Rosenberg and Schwimer are doing. Good luck, guys.