Lou Marson & Jason Donald Olympic bronze medalists
double bobble head.
Minix just wants to be in the mix
Tony Zonca
Among the characters and the prospects, the flame throwers and the Jamie Moyer wannabes, guys like
Travis Minix tend to get lost.
They come to the yard prepared each day, get in their work, give a solid effort when called upon, and go home each night largely unnoticed by the majority.
Minix and his type are the laborers – the middle relievers, the spot starters, the tourniquet appliers. Theirs is not a glamorous job. It is not one that usually draws attention. They are like the skilled workmen who lay the foundation for the glittering skyscraper.
They are the long-snappers of baseball: The only time you notice them is when they screw up.
To be sure, Travis Minix has done it all in his 10-year career in the minor leagues. He’s pitched long relief, short relief, he’s closed games, and this year, more than ever, he’s taken the ball at the start. Coming into the season, Minix, who just turned 31, had started a total of eight games, and none since 2003. This year he has made six starts.
“Let’s put it this way,” pitching coach Tom Filer said, “he’s been our go-to guy a lot of times this season. He’s been our jack-of-all-trades and he’s done a fantastic job. He’s done everything we’ve asked of him without complaint. I know P.J. (manager Forbes) and I appreciate the work and effort he’s put into everything he’s done this year.”
In 19 games, Minix is 2-5 with a 3.78 ERA. However, his earned run average is 6.23 as a starter, a glittering 1.37 as a reliever.
“It’s definitely a big adjustment (starting),” Minix said, “but I’ll take the ball any time they want to give me the ball. The adjustment was definitely tough, but I know the situation they had.”
Said Filer: “We knew he’d always been a reliever, but circumstances called for us to look for somebody to start. He came to mind, because we figured the guy could give us four innings right away and keep the pitching totals down.”
Only once, in his last two starts, did Minix make consecutive starts, and even then he kept his team in the game with solid six-inning efforts. He followed those with two stellar performances in which he allowed one run over 7.1 innings out of the pen, then got unlucky the next time out when his defense and the Baseball Gods betrayed him.
Minix, a former Tampa Bay farmhand, signed on with the Phillies organization in 2005. That season he shuffled between Reading and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, going 2-1 with a sparkling 1.77 ERA in 53 games.
He was a non-roster invitee to big league camp the following spring, a year in which he continued his good work in Scranton: 1-3, 2.40 ERA in 40 games.
Minix has always put up good numbers: Coming into this season he owned a 27-19 record and a 2.97 ERA. His hits allowed were lower than his innings pitched, and he had a terrific strikeouts-to-walks ratio at 471-144.
Yet, the Phillies released his at the tail end of spring training this season. It was almost as though he had thrown up in Pat Gillick's shoes. The right-hander wound up in pitching for Somerset (N.J.) of the independent Atlantic League.
It has been a dizzying journey back to Baseballtown, to be sure. Let him tell it:
“After the 2006 season the Phillies were willing to sign me, but they didn’t want to bring me to spring training (big league camp), which we had to kind of accept. I had had a great season, stayed healthy and did everything they asked me to do. My agent wasn’t happy with the fact they didn’t want to bring me back to
Major League camp, so we went a different route and went to Taiwan."
“It was a great experience. I was there for nine months. The baseball is good, but they don’t know how to use their pitchers, which is a long story.”
And then there was the gambling scandal, in which 10 Taiwanese players were suspended for life for fixing games.
“There were times when I was pitching, I’d see guys not make plays that were kind of routine,” Minix said, “but I would never bring it up, I would never second-guess anybody. I told the GM and the owner the first day I got there that if anybody approached me about the gambling situation, and I was a prime candidate because I was relieving and closing, that no questions asked, I was flying home the next day; I wasn’t going to deal with it.”
Minix said he appeared in 50 games in Taiwan and finished with a 2.98 ERA.
Still, it wasn’t till late May, and again while putting up good numbers in indy ball, when he made a call to Steve Noworyta, the Phillies farm director, that Minix returned to the organization.
“It’s been a long season,” he allowed. “I threw the ball well in spring training this year, I had a great camp, but it was just a situation where they had some young guys they wanted to come here.”
And we know how that turned out.
Minix, of course, still believes he has what it takes to make it to the big leagues, and why not?
“Once you give up hope you might as well hang up your spikes and call it a career,” he said. “I definitely have hope, and you always hear about the feel-good stories like (Phillies big league catcher) Chris Coste. If I can still compete and get the job done there’s no reason to give up and stop pitching.”
The organization has indicated they would like him back. There are no guarantees at this point that he’ll be invited to big league camp. Minix, however, is looking forward to starting the 2009 season on the Iron Pigs roster.
“He’s a professional,” Forbes has said, “and he’ll do what you ask of him. And he knows how to pitch. Every time out you feel like you’re going to be in the ballgame when he pitches.”
In a chaotic year for the young Phillies pitchers, Travis Minix has been a steadying influence these last three months. Even if a gang of people haven’t noticed.
