Phillip Wellman has spent the last two decades in Double-A baseball. His San Antonio Missions lost their best player shortly after the end of the first half, was a last-place team in the second half and was down two games to none when it rallied for three straight wins to push their way into the Texas League Championship Series, which begins Tuesday in Tulsa.

Union-Tribune: Considering the circumstances, is it talent, is it fight, that brings you all the way back to win that first playoff series?

Wellman: I think it was a combination of both of those. We were down two games to none and we were getting beat 8-1 in the third game and we had done something that I hadn’t seen in all my years in the game. We gave up four home runs in a row. I think after that inning, whether it was embarrassment or frustration, the light switch came on. Our guys had had enough. We scored a couple runs the next inning and just kept scoring and ended up tying the ballgame and won it. I think giving up those four home runs in a row was a turning point. It brought everyone together. We’re not going to get this done waiting on Josh Naylor to carry us or one pitcher to carry us. We were going to have to do this collectively.

U-T: From a momentum standpoint, how concerning was it to have to go to bed Friday night with the winning run on second base?


Wellman: When it started raining – and it rained hard – that was my biggest fear going to be that night. The rain may have stopped our momentum. You could sense it and feel it. Just looking at Corpus, you could kind of sense that they felt they were in trouble. They were basically getting ready to celebrate. When we tied it up and it started raining, I was like, golly. I was just hoping it didn’t squelch the momentum. We went out. We played the start of that suspended game at 1 o’clock Saturday afternoon. At 1:03 I was back in my office writing out the lineup for the next game. It didn’t take long and I think both teams had all night to sit and figure out what the strategy was going to be with a man on second and no outs. I’m pretty sure they thought we were going to bunt. They had both their corner infielders in and I had already told Owen Miller that we weren’t bunting. We were going to take three pops at it because we had Buddy Reed at second, who was the fastest human being on the field. Sure enough, if Owen Miller didn’t drive him in, he would at least get him to third and he did, and Josh Naylor hit a ball just soft enough to second base that Buddy Reed beat the throw home. I think that really set the tone for Game 4 and we got a tremendous pitching performance from Nick Margevicius. That was the first I’d ever seen him pitch.

U-T: And you had Chris Huffman in Game 5. He’s been in the rotation. He’s been sent to the bullpen when bigger-named prospects came up. What did he show you Sunday?

Wellman: I’ve never him so focused and locked in. It hadn’t been the greatest of years for him. He started in Triple-A. He scuffled, got sent back, was in our bullpen for a while. When we needed a starter, he went back into our rotation. … Since he’s been here, he and Jimmy Jones, our pitching coach, have really beared down and worked on somethings that got Chris Huffman back to pitching the way he had pitched before he got away from somethings. He looked like the Chris Huffman of old. He actually looked better because he was throwing a little harder. I don’t know where that came from but (Sunday) night he was topping out at 94 mph, which I’d never seen. I’ve seen him very good, but I’d never seen him throw that hard.

U-T: Whose job was it to tell Chris Paddack that he was shut down and could not pitch in the playoffs?


Wellman: Mine. He understood. Smart kid. He wasn’t happy because he’s a fierce competitor and he wants to pitch, but it was in his best interest. He’d already more than doubled his innings in one season coming off Tommy John. … This is my 19th or 20th year in Double-A. I told him, “Chris, two weeks after the season ends, nobody is going to remember that game. But if you go out in a Double-A baseball game with as bright a future as you have and we blow you out pushing you, I won’t be able to sleep at night.” Understand that this decision was made as an organization with Chris Paddack’s future at heart and he understood. He’s been here the whole time. He’s been a part of the club and he’s vocal and a leader and contributes other ways now.

U-T: What was your impression of him when he joined your club?

Wellman: He’s obviously a very fierce competitor. It’s unbelievable. You can see it watching him pitch. He’s not afraid to let his emotions show. He respects the game, respects his opponents, but he’s got a little fire to him and he’s not afraid to show it. It doesn’t hurt that that throws 94-96 mph with a tremendous change-up and his curveball is starting to come around.

U-T: What did losing Tatis when you did do to the club?


Wellman: We talked about it. We weren’t going to hide from it, because obviously we knew we weren’t going to replace him. You don’t replace a player like that. The approach I took was some of you other guys on the field are going to have to step up. Then River Stevens stepped in admirably at shortstop for Junior and then he got hurt and it ended his season. It was a double whammy. … That meant guys like Peter Van Gansen and Michael Gettys and some of those other guys had to pull a little more weight. That was my challenge to them.

U-T: What was your impression of how Tatis pulled himself out of his first month of the season?

Wellman: It was impressive but not unexpected. I’ve been in Double-A for a long time. The only guy I really never saw miss a beat coming to Double-A was Oscar Taveras – God rest his soul. Even the best players I had with the Braves and Cardinals, the best I’ve had here, it takes them a month usually – some of them six weeks – to figure it out. In time, the talent is going to surface and he had an abundance of it. I communicated with daily, “Trust the process.” Every day you’re here is another day of experience. When you look up, it will have been a week and then two weeks and then a month and every at-bat you’re going to get experience and see things you hadn’t seen before. I’m sure in Fort Wayne he wasn’t getting a whole lot of 2-0 change-ups or first-pitch sliders. He was getting to see that here. Once he started figuring those things out and was staying in the zone, his talent surfaced.

U-T: That first month thing seems to apply to Buddy Reed and Hudson Potts.


Wellman: Same thing. Buddy was leading the Cal League in hitting when he got sent to us. He finished the season at (.179). It’s hard for those kids to look at the big picture because they want success right now, but I think what Potts and Buddy Reed garnered from being here is experience and now when they go home and work on things they’ll have a better understanding and when their feet hit the Double-A field next year I think they’ll be fine because they are both talented.

U-T: Do you get a lot of 19-year-olds throwing 103 mph (Andres Munoz?):

Wellman: I’ve never seen one in my life until this year. It’s unbelievable. It’s fun to watch. … He threw his first pitch Sunday night at 101 mph and topped out at 103. He had an outing week ago to get a save. All 10 fastballs, his bottom velocity was 100. He topped out at 103 and he pitched at 102. I don’t know how to explain that. It’s just fun to watch and it’s so effortless. He’s not a max effort guy. He’s not grunting out there. It’s just a quick arm and the ball explodes out of his hand to the plate. And he’s 19. When I was 19, I was trying to figure out where my next class was. It’s hard to fathom that this kid is 19 years old, still has braces on his teeth and is throwing 103 mph.

U-T: Two years ago, your Double-A team lost 83 games. From your spot in the organization, what have you witnessed over the last two years?


Wellman: When I took the job they told me there was a little bit of a vacuum. The Double-A club was where the vacuum was. That first half I remember we were 22-48. It was a group of great kids and we played hard. We just weren’t that talented. But Sam (Geaney) and A.J. (Preller) and the higher-ups said be patient. It’s coming. They weren’t lying. You could see in the second half we were much better. We were in contention until about five days left the second half and last year we won the first half and the second half. Going into the playoffs this year, we had six guys left from our original roster. Six that we broke camp with. River got hurt. Tatis got hurt. We released one kid and we sent one kid down. You know where all the rest went? Up. Last time I looked there were six or seven guys in the big leagues that started at Double-A this year. If you step back and look at the big picture, I think that speaks highly of the scouting department, the player development department, the organization as a whole, that six guys started in Double-A and are in the big leagues now. As we struggled through the month in August, I was reminding myself and the staff that hey we’ve had a great year. I know it’s painful. We were 7-20 in August. But we were playing with three guys every day on the field that had been here all year. We basically had a whole new team. It took them a little while to figure some stuff out. That was my message to them Sunday night after we won the South. I said I hope you’ve learned something about yourself. When you do it collectively, you can do a lot of things. You can’t sit back and wait for Josh Naylor and Austin Allen to carry our offense. There’s nine guys in the order. You can’t sit back and wait for Chris Paddack to pitch a good game because he’s inactive right now. If we do it together and everybody pitches in, we’ve got a chance. I think they finally bought in and I’m immensely proud. I’m proud of the organization and proud of these players and proud of our scouting department. I’m proud right now.


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