Jayson Werth Returns to Philadelphia to Take on Phillies and Their Fans

What does a seven-year $126 million contract get you these days? Apparently it gets a .233 batting average with four home runs and seven RBI through the season’s first month. 

This works out to roughly $214,285 per RBI. These are the numbers of high-priced free agent Jayson Werth. To state that Werth is off to a slow start is an understatement 

To state that things will get easier for Werth beginning tonight is a colossal understatement. 

Beginning tonight, Werth and the Washington Nationals begin a three-game series in Citizen’s Bank Park, Werth’s former home. These next three games have been circled on every Phillies fans magnetic giveaway calendar since Werth signed that monstrous deal in December of last year. 

To put it mildly, Phillies fans are passionate. Consider the chorus of boos that Werth heard when he took his usual place in right field for the Nationals in Nationals Park just three weeks ago. 

Those boos had nothing to do with his production on the the field, though it would be warranted, and everything to do with the thousands of Phillies fans that were in attendance. 

Considering tonight will be yet another sell out for the Phillies, this means that there will be 45,000+ in attendance ready to greet Werth with the same sort of gusto when he bats in the top of the first inning and then again in the bottom of the inning when he takes his position a mere 50 feet from the fans seated in right field. 

The same fans who once adored him and signed on to Facebook pages dedicated in both his honor and his beard’s honor. Fans who cheered his every success. Fans who have not forgotten his past accomplishments.

Please don’t misunderstand, Phillies fans are knowledgeable and understand that Werth was a key cog in the team’s success over the last several years and that during those postseason run’s, he has climbed atop the Phillies all-time postseason homer run list. 

However, the dynamic has changed.  Werth spurned an entire city this offseason when he bolted down the I-95 corridor for Washington D.C. and greener pastures. No, Werth will not be playing for a contender this year, nor will he be playing for a contender next year. He will however, be making a boatload of money. 

Tonight, Jayson Werth will be reminded of what he gave up for all of those dollar bills and of what he left behind. Tonight, at the ballpark in South Philly, he will be wearing a slightly different shade of red and in Philadelphia, that makes all the difference. 

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