PLAYER OF THE WEEK

Sandy Ramras

October 03, 1966

What makes a major league pitcher? Well, Pat Jarvis started the season by falling off a car during a parade welcoming ballplayers to Richmond, Va. before opening day. He injured his neck, not seriously, but badly enough so that he had to sit out the first three weeks of the year. Then he had a 6-5 record for Richmond, with an uninspiring 3.88 earned run average and a disturbing tendency to be wild. Now this same Jarvis has won six straight starts for the Atlanta Braves, including four the past three weeks, as the resurgent Braves took 19 of 21 games and climbed into the first division. A 25-year-old right-hander, Jarvis suddenly found control and has walked only eight batters in 57? innings while posting a 1.86 earned run average. Whitlow Wyatt, the Braves' pitching coach, went to Richmond one night in late July on a scouting mission, and that particular night Jarvis pitched his best game. "The Braves then asked me if I could pitch relief, and I just told them that I'd do anything to get to the majors," says Jarvis. The Braves called him to Atlanta as a reliefer, but when Denny Lemaster developed arm trouble and Wade Blasingame still could not win, Jarvis became a starter. "Paul Richards and Whitlow Wyatt changed me from a three-quarters delivery to completely overhand, and I can control my pitches much better. That's the difference now," says Jarvis. Still, after every inning he pitches for the Braves, Jarvis exclaims: "I don't believe I'm here."