Phillies should be thrilled over debut from Jason Vargas, despite loss

Despite losing to the Chicago White Sox on Friday, the Philadelphia Phillies should still be pleased with the debut by Jason Vargas.

The Philadelphia Phillies made a few key moves leading up to the trade deadline this past week, one of which happened to be acquiring Jason Vargas from the New York Mets.

While there were some fans who would have preferred the Phillies went after another starting pitcher, there did seem to be some sort of potential surrounding Vargas in regards to being a potential steal.

Between the inconsistency from the bullpen along with Jake Arrieta dealing with an elbow injury, it was easy to understand Philadelphia’s decision to give someone such as Vargas a shot.

Plus, before the trade took place for the Phillies, Vargas was playing some of his better baseball after only allowing six runs in his previous 17.2 innings of action.

With this in mind, there was plenty of excitement leading up to Friday’s debut for Vargas against a team like the Chicago White Sox since Philadelphia needed all of the extra help possible in the win department.

For a team with high expectations at the beginning of the season, it’s been beyond frustrating to see the Phillies currently sitting in third place in the NL East at this point in August.

And while it was even more frustrating to watch Philadelphia come up short in their first game of the series against Chicago on Friday night in 15 innings, the good news for the Phillies is Vargas was solid in his debut.

During 6.1 innings of action, Vargas only allowed two runs on five hits while striking out five batters in the process.

If only the Phillies’ offense didn’t fail to come through on their end after only scoring three runs all game, this could have been the perfect debut for Vargas on his new team.

Maybe for Vargas’ second outing next week, Philadelphia’s offense can actually put up some more runs to take some of the pressure off their new teammate, and actually help him earn that first win with the team.

The Phillies clearly felt confident enough in Vargas potentially turning out to be a steal, and while one performance doesn’t determine whether this is the case, at least his debut gives Philadelphia plenty to be excited about.