Vance Worley bouncing back with Pirates after bottoming out

The Phillies had a problem.

This was new territory for them in 2011. It was April 29 and they hadn't lost a series yet. At 17-8, they were on top of the National League East, on top of the NL, and on top of the world as their rotation of number one starters was predictably erasing "opposing offense" as a concept.

But they couldn't all be aces. The spot in the rotation not inhabited by Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels or Roy Oswalt belonged to Joe Blanton, whose recent MRI had come back with intensified elbow issues. He was headed to the disabled list, and the Phillies needed a fifth ace to take his place.

Barring that, they would have to dig into their farm system, which is, in the end, what they did. They settled on a kid with rec specs from Sacramento, with "VANIMAL" written on his glove.

Vance Worley took the mound that night against the Mets, and not many people knew who they were looking at. Nevertheless, he threw them 102 pitches through six innings, walking four but allowing no runs. The Phillies went on to win, 10-3. Worley stuck around, and in two starts, gave up one run and six hits over 12 innings, while providing some relief work out of the bullpen, as well.

Worley was sent back down to ferment in the minors until May 22, when Blanton went back on the DL, but struggled in his first start against the Mets. But by the middle of June, Worley had stitched together enough worthy starts with Lehigh Valley that the Phillies beckoned him once again, this time for good.

On July 26, the Giants came to Philadelphia, their first time in the city since eliminating the Phillies from the playoffs on a Brian Wilson fastball that Ryan Howard took at the knees. They went on to be marketed as a "quirky underdog" narrative, reveling in the label as if they'd somehow been forced to suffer because they weren't any analysts' top pick.

Emotions were raw, and apparently still are. Mostly, people just really, really wanted to beat the Giants, in hopes that a regular season victory would satiate in the least bit the abrupt frustration of the 2010 NLCS.

Worley took the mound and obliged.

With the aid of a Chase Utley inside-the-park home run/Superman slide, it was one of the best games of the season, even if the Phillies lineup was just beating up on broken spot starter Barry Zito, who was replacing Tim Lincecum after he had started vomiting just prior to the game.

By the end of the year, Worley notched an 11-3 record with a 3.01 ERA, landing in third place for the NL Rookie of the Year vote behind the Braves' incoming youth movement, Craig Kimbrel and Freddie Freeman.

After failed experiments like Kyle Kendrick and J.A. Happ had excited as young pitching prospects, then wreaked havoc on their second time around the league, concerns arose for Worley. He was cockier, he had a better cut fastball, his called third strike totals would force involuntary facial ticks; but he had never been considered an elite starter as a minor leaguer. What were the odds the Phillies had struck gold?

They barely had time to consider the notion in 2012, when Worley started the year well enough, but a persistent bone chip refused to be ignored in his elbow, slowly creating chaos for Worley any time he threw until the Phillies had seen enough in August. Worley was shut down for the season and put under the knife.

By December, Philadelphia was frozen solid both by another terrifying winter and by the trauma of the Phillies missing the playoffs for the first time in six years. A midseason freakout in which Shane Victorino, Hunter Pence and Joe Blanton had all been traded to the west coast had done little to help matters. Now, without most of an outfield, the Phillies were going to have to make some moves, and Worley seemed to factor into them.

On the morning of December 6, Worley had been working out at Citizens Bank Park when he was informed he'd be moving to Minneapolis. The center fielder the Phillies no longer needed was Ben Revere, and they'd acquired him from the Twins for Worley and prospect Trevor May.

Minnesota wasn't smoldering with intensity at this point. Any recent playoff fires had been quickly smothered by the hotter, better Yankees and Tigers squads of the mid 2000s. Their stars, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, had suffered tremendous injuries, ratcheting them far below their previous ceilings. The Twins weren't going to be good; it was a conclusion drawn even before evaluating the pitching staff.

While Worley had enjoyed frenzied success and raucous popularity in 2011, he was by no means a number one starter. That he immediately became the Opening Day hurler for the Twins upon their acquisition of him meant that it may be a tough year at Target Field. Somehow, it was an even tougher year for Worley.

The Tigers tagged him with eight hits over six innings, through which he allowed three runs and only one walk on the way to a 4-2 loss. In his next start, he gave up 10 hits and four runs in five innings. In his next start, he got torpedoed by the Mets within minutes of the first pitch, allowing seven hits, nine runs (seven earned). When he was pulled before the second inning, his ERA had exploded to 10.50 and the Twins lost, 16-5.

By the end of May, the 15-27 Twins were last in the AL Central, last in the AL, and if not for an even worse Cubs team, last in all of baseball. Of their many, many problems, they decided to solve the one in which their frontline starter was giving up 15.2 H/9, amassing a 7.21 ERA over 10 starts. Two years to the day of his second call from the Phillies to the big leagues, Worley was demoted to triple A Rochester to work out his control problems, but was still issuing one walk for every two strikeouts by season's end.

The following spring, the Twins just sort of let Worley drift off the roster after he showed up at camp to post a 13.50 ERA in spring training. But the league will always be ravenous for pitching, and it was only three days later that the Pirates offered Minnesota a small pile of money for the 26-year-old.

It was a nothing story at the time. Most people liked the kid and wanted him to do well, but his numbers weren't really deniable. The Pirates put him out there to take on the Marlins June 15, with Gerrit Cole DL'd by a shoulder injury, hoping he could keep them in the game. But Worley was the game, chucking seven shutout innings in his first start since the eight-run, 3.2-inning debacle that cost him his job in Minnesota.

In 16 starts for Pittsburgh, he's given up more than three runs only three times. Only once has he walked more than two hitters in a game.

On July 28, almost three years to the date of his milestone first complete game ever, Worley went the distance - again, on the Giants - but this time didn't even bother to allow them a courtesy run. It was a complete game shutout when the Pirates could really use one, and the first CGSO of his career, completed with exactly 100 pitches thrown to only two batters over the minimum. He threw 71 pitches for strikes.

The Phillies' initial trade made sense; Worley's value had never been higher, and the team needed a young, MLB-ready, controllable center fielder. But as always, Worley's future was impossible to gauge, and the trade's true effects may still be forming as Worley gets right (let alone whatever awaits Trevor May).

On the other side, no one in Minneapolis likely ever considered that "Ben Revere, National League Batting Champion" could be a thing.