INK-BLOT TEST
Telling tattoos aside, Jays hopeful Mat Latos hopes a checkered body of work and history of bad blood doesn’t end search for eighth big-league home.
Mat Latos is giving us a tour of his tats. Hardcore. On the left calf, a phoenix; on the right calf, Stewie (the baby) and Brian (the dog) from Family Guy. “I got Stewie first and then I felt like he needed a friend, so I got Brian.”
Body art sleeves up both arms, along the ribs, the sides, across knuckles. Turbo car with pistons on his chest, fish hook on the trapezoid, son’s name inside the forearm, his newborn’s footprints on the back. An MLB logo surrounded by baseball seams. And a personal credo: “Love me or hate me.’’
They’ve done both, teammates from seasons past.
After his controversial 2014 offseason departure-in-trade from Cincinnati, in the wake of quote grenades he’d tossed on his way out the door — that the clubhouse was a “circus” without leadership, that a reliever was sleeping in the locker room until the seventh inning, that management had rushed him back from knee surgery — fellow pitcher Homer Bailey observed dryly: “If this was a court of law, the cross-examination would go after the credibility of the witness.’’ And this from second baseman Skip Schumaker on Latos’ trade to the Marlins: “I think it was an addition by subtraction. I think a lot of us will be happy to see him in Miami.”
Whether Toronto fans will get to pick a side, pick a reaction, depends on how the 29-year leaves Florida three weeks hence or sooner: As a right-handed reliever in the Blue Jays bullpen, as a starter in Triple A, or with a hardly-knew-ye farewell to the franchise, which is entirely possible since Latos has an opt-out clause in the minor-league contract he signed last month.
But before we ponder the imminent possibilities — or dwell too much on the rude welcome Latos received on his first pitch delivered Monday, entering the game against Boston in the fourth inning (a Rusney Castillo home run that sailed over the rightfield wall) — here’s a flashback from the recent past: Sept. 13, 2016, and Latos was making his first start with Washington, a promising debut after three months getting his conditioning act together in the minors.
He homered for the first time since 2012, the big lug of a hurler who was rated by Baseball America as one of the top prospects of 2006, yet fell to San Diego in the 11th round over high demands and baggage issues, including questions about his mental makeup and personality.
“That was my one and only start, my first at-bat as a National. Cool. I closed my eyes and swung the bat. Just got lucky.”
Latos tells the story with amusement. In fact, over the course of a lengthy interview he answers all questions with good cheer and selfdeprecation, leaving an inquisitor to wonder why the guy is hauling around such a lousy reputation and, with the Jays, is now on his eighth MLB team in eight years.
“Young and dumb and kind of taking it for granted when you’re 19, 20 — at least I did,” says Latos, recalling the hotshot he’d been breaking into The Show, cocky and volatile, disrespectful to umpires, sassy to elder statesmen of the game. “I wish that I hadn’t. I wish I could have clung to some of the veterans to kind of get a better understanding of the game of baseball in general.’’ He means, especially, those salad days that extended through three salad-days seasons with the Padres, a six-foot-six monster on the mound with 98-m.p.h. heat, slider, curveball and split.
“I was just in the moment,” he says, recalling his self-absorbed younger self, and perhaps why he was soon launched on his peregrinations around both leagues. “Twenty-one years old and I thought I knew everything, trying to blow fastballs by everyone.”
And still, there he was in Sarasota last week, third appearance as a Jay, jawing with the ump over the strike zone — in a Grapefruit League game, for heaven’s sake. Livid as he left the bump, after one might say deliberately and disgustedly grooving a 92-mile-an-hour fastball over the plate that Craig Gentry walloped for a three-run homer.
“I’m a competitor, I want to win. That’s the way it’s always been. After my second inning, I said a couple of words to (the umpire), let him know he was missing stuff and that bigleague hitters don’t need any extra help. But I’ve got to do a better job of getting that out of my head. I held onto it instead of getting it out of my system.”
One gets the impression that Latos doesn’t often listen to his sterner inner self; that his emotions are on the surface and kamikaze. Six teams in the last two years, after all, mere months in Miami before a trade to the Dodgers and released two months later, signing as a free agent with the Angels, signed and released by Chicago, onwards to Washington and Toronto. Still chafing about the Dodgers. “I didn’t understand why I was on such a short lease — just a quick hook.’’
Younger starters passing him by, his conditioning dubious.
“The stuff I was doing when I was younger, with no limitations, just wasn’t cutting it anymore. It was more a mixture of me being stub- born-slash-sore.’’
That soreness relates primarily to the knee that his been his bane since he injured it throwing, sticking his feet and just kept rotating. “Then I felt a pop.” Surgery removed the ravaged meniscus. Even a couple of years later, he was having water drained from it. Though he tries to take back his comments now, claiming it was misconstrued, he did tee off on the Reds — the interview with Ken Rosenthal still exists on Fox Sports — accusing them of forcing him to throw on the fifth day after surgery. “I feel like I am the one who rushed back. I was the one who said, I need to get back on the mound. I should have taken more time.”
Nowadays, Latos praises the Reds organization. “I’m extremely thankful and grateful that I got the opportunity to pitch in Cincinnati because I really think I became the pitcher that I know I can be while I was there. In a ballpark that small, you have to learn how to pitch.’’
A conditioning program formatted for him while in Washington’s minor league system, he says, has been greatly beneficial. He’s throwing without pain here, fastball at 90 to 94, albeit with a 7.88 ERA through four spring training games, though still in contention for a ’pen job.
“I feel like I’ve got more. I’m not reaching back yet and letting it go. When it comes time for it, when I’m feeling really good, then I’ll start letting go.”
Or he will be let go. Or he will go of his own volition.
“The way I look at it, I’m here now. I’m along for the ride.’’