Although there have been several nice surprises this spring while watching the team on a daily basis, there is one guy in particular whose in-game performance has absolutely dazzled me…
right hand pitcher, Casey Kelly.
When I first saw him pitch last spring training I was fairly impressed by the young right-hander’s stuff, decent command, and fearlessness of pitching inside to MLB hitters during his first big league spring training. I was excited about what we might see out of him during the regular season, in which he was slated to start at AA San Antonio.
My expectations were that he would eventually start to overmatch AA hitters, and find himself in AAA before the last month of the season with the outside chance of a September call up, or at least some buzz of him being THE guy to watch the following spring. I followed his progress during the season, and while I saw some nice box scores, there were also some rocky ones mixed in as well – to be expected. However, I kept waiting for that streak of excellence for 5 or more games in a row that would establish his dominance of AA hitters, and propel him to the next level of his development, and stepping stone to the big leagues…but it never came.
Not being able to see him pitch with my own eyes I was left to wonder what had gone on, and why his development had seemed somewhat arrested for the season. So, I was curious to see him this spring with the visions of what had impressed me about him last spring still running in my mind. My puzzlement was not put to rest, though, as I watched him throw his early bullpens, and saw hitters make surprisingly consistent contact on his at times electric, yet inconsistent stuff during the early live BP rounds.
As I did with every player in camp, I talked to Casey about his off season training regimen and his goals for the spring, and to pitching coach, Darren Balsley, about any changes he was trying to incorporate this year. What I learned was there were definitely some things that he had done differently in preparation for this season.
First, he talked to me about how his off season goal was to get more athletic on the mound and in his approach to the game. It sounded like he felt that maybe he had gotten a little too stuck in the rut of having to think, act, and use his his body like a pitcher is expected to – or at least his perception of how a pitcher was expected to. He wanted to get back to that feeling of pure athleticism that he once exhibited in everything he did on an athletic field. It used to just emanate naturally from his gifted body, allowing him to excel as a highly sought after quarterback prospect on the gridiron, and shortstop on the diamond coming out of high school. In an effort to train his body to his professionally assigned discipline of pitching, he had slowly become almost robotic in his motions. The athlete inside him was still there and producing some nice results, but like a Ferrari with a governor, there was a lot more horsepower surging inside waiting to be released.
At the end of last season Balsley, and manager, Buddy Black, encouraged him to pick up his delivery pace a little and break out of the mechanical man mode he had fallen into. Casey took the advice to heart, and spent the off season working out with an emphasis on regaining that feeling, and those fluid actions of the athlete still inside that had always separated him from the pack.
Second, there was a small change that was suggested by Balsley that he start his delivery from a position a little more to the first base side of the pitching rubber instead of the extreme third base side that he was accustomed to. The hope, as it usually is for most guys making such a switch, was that it would allow him to more easily locate his pitches to the sometimes more difficult to reach arm side of the plate.
So far the results from these two changes has been dramatic. Although only a small sampling so far, the numbers speak for themselves: in two outings he’s pitched 5 scoreless innings, sticking out 6 and walking none. More importantly for me it’s the uncomfortableness of the at bats that opponents are showing that tells the meaningful story. Opposing batters are not only not making good contact, but they are being completely overmatched at times. When you see guys swing late on fastball that tells you something; when you see them unable to catch up to fastballs at all when they know they are coming in cripple counts that tells you even more. Guys simply can’t catch up thus far, and it has less to do with the MPH that shows up on the scouts radar gun, as the late explosive life that his ball is displaying as it reaches the hitting zone. Combine that with the ability to move the ball to both sides of the plate, and a late breaking slider, and you have a guy who can make even veteran MLB hitters uncomfortable walking up to the dish.
Darren Balsley is not one to ever take credit for the help he provides to his pitchers despite the on going success of his staffs, and individual accomplishments of rookie and veteran hurlers under his tutelage. I doubt he’ll talk much about his work with Kelly either, but hopefully these early results of his adjustments with the 22 year old right hander prove to be as impacting over the long hall as the early results are indicating. If so, it only bodes well for the future of the Padres rotation.
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