Stutes sticks with Phillies as first roster cuts are made

SARASOTA, Fla. - Midway through last spring training, Mike Stutes was summoned to an office for a meeting with Phillies assistant general manager Chuck LaMar and minor league pitching coordinator Gorman Heimueller. The two longtime personnel men gave the righthander their blunt assessment of his future in the organization, suggesting that his skill set profiled better in the bullpen than in the starting rotation.

"When they brought me in, they were asking me," Stutes, 24, said in a conversation with the Daily News earlier this spring, "but at the same time, they were telling me."

Less than a year later, the move is already paying huge dividends. While the Phillies sent most of their younger prospects back to the minor leagues yesterday while paring their roster to 45, they decided to keep Stutes around for at least one more appearance against major league hitters. A slender, 6-1 righthander whom the Phils selected in the 11th round of the 2008 draft, Stutes is not even on the club's 40-man roster. But he has been the star of the spring thus far, striking out 11 and walking none while allowing one run in seven innings.

In Stutes' most recent outing, he retired three Yankees regulars in order, getting Robinson Cano to ground out, Nick Swisher to fly out and Curtis Granderson to pop out in a 7-0 Phillies win on Thursday. In five other occasions against hitters with significant major league experience, he allowed a ground-ball hit and recorded one ground-ball out, one strikeout and two flyouts.

After a game against the Red Sox in which Stutes struck out Darnell McDonald and coaxed David Ortiz into a grounder back to the pitcher's mound, an umpire pulled Charlie Manuel aside and raved about the late life on Stutes' fastball. According to Manuel, the umpire said it was the most impressive burst he'd seen all spring.

The evidence is easy to see in the uncomfortable swings Stutes' fastball produces.

"He's got real good late life on his fastball," Manuel said. "He's got some pop. He's got some rise like Jim Palmer had. That's why they don't swing good at him. The late jump beats 'em. It's hard to time him down."

Stutes had spent his entire career as a starter when the Phillies pushed him toward the bullpen. A member of Oregon State's back-to-back NCAA title teams in 2006 and '07, he went on to start 27 games at Double A Reading in 2009, going 8-8 with a 4.26 ERA.