Reliever pitches way back into loop
John Gibbons can’t remember it. Aaron Loup can’t forget it.
Just goes to show how the world revolves differently, between a manager and a player; and what sticks in the brain like a nettle.
For Loup, it was Gibbons delivering a motion of non-confidence to the reliever last season. Saying it to his face.
“He admitted to me that he really didn’t have any confidence in myself,” Loup was recalling Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after he had pitched the Jays out of an inherited, bases-loaded jam, striking out three and inducing a couple of ground balls through 12⁄ in
3 nings of no-hit, high-leverage rescue work, cutting off the Rangers’ offence at its knees.
“I didn’t blame him because I didn’t have any confidence in myself at the time either,” Loup said.
He was a left-handed specialist who didn’t have much success punching out lefties in 2016, in large part a residue of the flexor strain in his pitching elbow that had cost Loup all of spring training. Mostly a cipher in the ’pen and not a face fans greeted warmly when he emerged.
Gibbons, who is loath to divulge anything about his one-on-one conversations with players, claims to have no recall of a frank talk with the languid Louisianan. “I don’t remember exactly how I expressed it,” the manager demurred, adding only, “It’s not that you don’t trust them. But a lot of times you go with the hot hand.”
Loup’s hand had turned frigid, with a 2016 ERA of 5.02 in a mere 141⁄ innings
3 pitched.
And it hurt to have Gibbons lose faith in him. But Loup could hardly blame the boss.
“The last year, coming into this season, I hadn’t pitched well. So I didn’t really have much confidence in myself, nor did I think Gibby had any confidence in me.’’
Their personal relationship had always been good. “Me and Gibby always clicked well.” But it’s baseball. It isn’t personal. And Loup had veered from reliable, in limited situations, to incendiary. He was the most confused about it. “I found myself riding the roller coaster and going on a downhill slope that you really don’t want to go on.”
“Kind of like when a hitter goes into a slump and they’re looking for a way to get out of it. I found myself searching a lot, trying to find myself.”
Trying to find, most especially, the feel for his fastball, and that sense of indestructibility that a pitcher must take to the hill. Without that, he’s mentally exposed and likely to get lit up.
The consistency of his inconsistency was the worst part, he says of Loup circa 2016. “You do have to flush it.” The bad outings. “But it’s tough when they keep happening. Like, if you find yourself in a rut and you go out there and find yourself in another one. It definitely wears on you mentally.’’
But it’s almost, now, as if Loup is talking about another person, a doppelganger Loup. Because this one — the Loup who dropped the guillotine on the Rangers the other night, who is 2-0 with an ERA of 2.70 over 262⁄ innings — can
3 scarcely believe the ease of it himself, how all the pieces have fallen into place just so. The Loup who punched out a couple of Rangers on sliders and got the best of nemesis Adrian Beltre with wrist-locking changeups on a third strikeout.
“I’ve had good command for the most part. I got the action back on my fastball that I feel. My fastball has lots of life. It’s jumping out up my hand.’’
Velocity on the fastball up to 94 m.p.h., terrific movement, sink, which is a big part of his effectiveness. Mixing that in with changeups mostly to right-handers, sliders mostly to left-handers, Loup believes he can handle both, not just be lefty specialist, and Gibbons has been expanding his use.
“More life on the fastball,” observed pitching coach Pete Walker. “His breaking ball, we’ve shortened up a little bit. But the main thing is he’s confident, he feels good, he seems to be throwing strikes overall and commanding the ball better.
“It’s his slot, his arm action,” continued Walker, explaining how the fastball has smartened up. “It’s where he’s throwing from. It’s a difficult angle to pick up from either the right side or the left side of home plate.
“When he’s on his game like he is right now, you can see his confidence on the mound. He’s not feeling for it, he’s not searching for it. He’s very comfortable where he is.”
In as dicey circumstances as imaginable, and maybe because his bullpen options are limited with both J.P. Howell and Joe Smith on the DL shelf, Gibbons turned Monday night to Loup.
“Pressure? Yeah, yeah, big situation. My mindset was, get out of it the best I can and hopefully come out of it unscathed. Basically I felt like, however it ended up, if I was able to get out of it or I ended up giving up runs, I felt like, for me, this was going to decide the game.”
Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. But no maybe that he justified Gibbons’ reliance.
“I always figured if I could show him that I could get guys out, get back to what I used to do, that he would have trust in me again.”