Is Washington Nationals pitcher Tom Gorzelanny the most interesting man in the world?
That may be a stretch.
Is he the most interesting National not named Stephen Strasburg, who is playing catch in California, or Bryce Harper, who is playing in Hagerstown?
Probably not. After all, Jayson Werth is being paid $126 million and is batting .228. That’s fairly interesting.
Is Gorzelanny — Friday’s starter against the Marlins — the most interesting Washington pitcher?
Not when Livan Hernandez is striking out hitters throwing slower than the medium speed pitching machine at the local batting cage and meeting with federal investigators about a drug lord in Puerto Rico.
OK, are you at least curious about Gorzelanny? You should be because he could wind up being general manager Mike Rizzo’s greatest find.
Gorzelanny, acquired in a trade in January from the Chicago Cubs for three minor leaguers, is coming off an impressive 5-2 win over the Marlins on Saturday, allowing just two runs and two hits over seven innings.
It followed a more impressive performance on May 2 against the World Series champion Giants, when he pitched eight shutout innings.
In fact, save for his Nats debut April 9, when Gorzelanny surrendered six runs in five innings in a loss to the Mets, he has given up just seven runs and 17 hits in 32 1/3 innings.
Six starts does not make a career. But what makes Gorzelanny so particularly interesting is he conjures up images of the patron saint of left-handed pitchers — Jamie Moyer, who baseballreference.com refers to as one of the pitchers similar to Gorzelanny at this stage of their careers.
Moyer is a crafty left-hander who struggled early in his career and bounced around until, at the age of 34, he found his place in baseball with Seattle and became one of the best left-handers in the game. He has 267 career wins — 201 of them after he was traded to the Mariners in 1996.
When Rizzo traded for Gorzelanny, a second-round draft choice by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2003, he said that there was still some “upside to this guy. We think he’s going to have a big rebound year.”
Upside? Rizzo may have bought in on the ground floor of IBM.
On the other hand, one of the other pitchers considered comparable to Gorzelanny is left-hander Doug Davis, who has a 91-101 record over 12 major league seasons.
This is why left-handers are the most interesting men in the world.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
