CLEARWATER, Fla. - For his first four starts after the Phillies called him up from triple A last year, Jake Thompson was all arms and legs and anxiety. He had generated a fair bit of excitement, ahead of his debut with them on Aug. 5, by pitching so well at Lehigh Valley, going 11-5 with a 2.50 earned-run average and a fine 1.095 walks-and-hits-per-innings. But in Thompson's next-to-last start for the Iron Pigs, the Syracuse Chiefs had hammered him for seven hits and five runs over five innings, and his delivery didn't feel smooth or in sync.
Then he was a major- leaguer, 22 years old and admittedly nervous, and those first four starts were disastrous: a 1-3 record, a 9.