Ben Lively Shows Poise in Big League Debut

The Phillies farm system has a plethora of young arms all hoping for their chance to sow their stuff at the big league level.  The team has paraded many of their young prospects up to Philadelphia over the last season and a half due to injuries with mixed reviews.

The team already has young guys like Aaron Nola, Jared Eickhoff and Vince Velasquez, whose on the disabled list, in the rotation and we've seen others like Jake Thompson and Zach Eflin struggle to show they belong.

The latest young arm to get his shot was Ben Lively, who was acquired in a 2014 trade with the Reds in exchange for outfielder Marlon Byrd. On Saturday, Lively allowed one run in seven innings, showing great command and the ability to throw strikes, earning a 5-3 win over the Giants in his major league debut.

On Monday's show we asked former Phillies pitcher Tommy Greene, a member of the Phillies 1993 team, and now a part of CSN Philadelphia's Phillies coverage about what he saw from Lively in his big league debut.

"The book on him is he's sort of a bulldog there where nothing rattles him. He was pretty confident he didn’t seem nervous at all," Greene said.

"He attacks the zone, he comes at you with an assortment of pitches and he threw a lot of fastballs, moved it in and out, commanded it and pitched to contact. He didn’t strike out anybody but he's got it through his head because he's had a lot of success the past year and a half or so about pitching to contact and not really caring about the strikeouts."

The 25-year old, former fourth-round pick was pitching well at the Triple-A level, with a 2.40 ERA, 0.94 WHIP and 45/7 K/BB ratio across 56 1/3 innings this season.