After beginning the 2008 season in a platoon with Geoff Jenkins, Werth, 29, opens this year in a much more prominent role, asked to replace Pat Burrell's righthanded power and bat behind cleanup hitter Ryan Howard.
Hitting mostly second and sixth last year, Werth enjoyed a long-awaited career breakthrough, playing 134 games, batting .273 with a .363 on-base percentage and contributing 24 home runs. The Phillies rewarded him with a two-year, $10 million contract extension this January.
If Werth remains healthy and continues to show power and plate discipline, the sight of a Chase Utley-Howard-Werth stretch of the Phillies lineup will cause anxiety for opposing pitchers and complicate their managers' bullpen moves. If not, and if lefthanded Raul Ibanez is forced to move from sixth to fifth in the batting order, the Phillies will be significantly more vulnerable to lefty pitching.
Is Werth, who batted fifth only 14 times last year and has suffered numerous injuries, up to the challenge? Two key figures in his baseball development, Werth's mother and athletic role model, Kim Werth, and Phillies senior adviser Pat Gillick, say that he is.
Kim Werth's athletic experience lends her credibility. A sprinter who competed in the 1976 Olympic trials and saw her career shortened by injuries, Kim transferred her competitive intensity to Jayson. The daughter of longtime major-leaguer Dick "Ducky" Schofield and sister of former big-leaguer Dick Schofield, Kim threw batting practice to Jayson when her son was 3 years old and always pushed him to maximize his talent. "At an early age, I was expected to play hard and take whatever I was doing seriously," Werth said.
