Meeting on the mound ... literally
Jays have used 30 pitchers so far this season, making life more difficult for their catchers
TORONTO — Mound meetings are common in Major League Baseball — too common, some would argue — but twice this season Luke Maile has had to take the concept literally.
The Toronto Blue Jays catcher was introduced to Jake Petricka on the mound back in early May, when the reliever entered an American League baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.
Maile then met Brandon Cumpton on the mound in Oakland on July 31, when the righty relieved a short while after he landed in California following a late call-up on trade deadline day.
A quick “Hey, what you got?” and they were on their way.
“To me, it’s fun,” Maile said. “It’s just kind of funny. You hear about all these stories for years. About, like, guys in the big leagues and how crazy it can be. So when it happens, it happens. You’re going to remember it. Hopefully the guy does well, so the story has a happy ending.”
Toronto’s catchers have had to be adaptable this season. When Sean Reid-Foley debuted against Kansas City on Monday, he was the Jays’ 30th pitcher in a little more than four months. Their time with Toronto this season ranges anywhere from twothirds of an inning for righthander Chris Rowley, now in the Texas Rangers organization, to 114 innings for J.A. Happ, now with the New York Yankees.
The process of getting on the same page might be rushed at times, but Maile and Russell Martin say becoming acquainted with the guys they’re catching isn’t “earth-shattering” or “rocket science.” Mostly, it’s a matter of good communication.
“Really you just talk with the person, kind of get an overall feel of what they like to do, because you kind of need a base or a foundation to work off of,” Martin said. “And then the more experience you have, the more pitchers start reminding you of a pitcher that you’ve caught in the past. So you can kind of go back and have an understanding of what works for them.”
Martin likes to start with a chat focusing on the basics: what pitches they throw and in what sequence, and what’s been working for them.
“From then on, it’s just making adjustments in-game, talking after an inning or after an out,” he said. “Just keep the conversation going.”
Both catchers had a chance to either see or work with most of the pitchers they have paired up with this season in spring training. In that case, it just becomes a matter of catching up on the time spent apart.
“You just see how they’ve been doing, what’s been working … because just because he was throwing this pitch off of this pitch in March, doesn’t mean that he’s doing it now,” Maile said.
It’s more difficult when dealing with guys like Cumpton, spot starter Mike Hauschild or closer Ken Giles, the few pitchers who didn’t start the year with the organization. “Then you’ve just got to kind of learn some personality along with the things I just mentioned,” Maile said.
As the Jays continue their rebuild, there’s a chance of even more faces on the mound in the coming weeks. And more talking.
“You just try to pick a time that works for them,” Maile said.
“You try not to get in their way because their life is really sped up at the moment, so you just want to make it quick and concise and you just go through what’s really important and the rest of it. You just try to execute pitches and figure it out as you go.”
Manager John Gibbons, a former catcher himself, said that in situations where his pitcher and catcher are unfamiliar with each other, he has to trust that his catchers are in the big leagues for a reason: They’ve got good hands. “It’s still not easy, but they’ve just got to feel it out,” Gibbons said. “You can see somebody from the side and you go back there to squat to catch them and it’s totally different: Sometimes some guys’ balls really jump on you, some guys move a certain way. If you’ve never caught him before, it can be difficult, especially in a close ball game.”
While Maile and Martin might be backed by experience, the new guy behind the dish, Danny Jansen, is only days into his bigleague career. He has caught two games since his debut on Monday, and is expected to catch games against the Yankees on Saturday and Sunday.
Jansen, too, has some familiarity with pitchers from spring training. And there are a number of his Buffalo Bisons teammates both in the rotation and in relief these days. But for those players he is not so comfortable with, he said he plans to lean on his counterparts behind the plate.
“Obviously it’s hard, these guys are veteran guys and I haven’t talked to them much yet, but I’ll try to talk to Russ and Luke and see what they do and try to learn as much as possible, so I can hit the ground running.”