THE CLOSER’S FRESH START
V is for velocity and for volatile when it comes to Blue Jay Ken Giles, who says harnessing his heater and aggression put him in a happy place after feeling ‘trapped’ with the World Series champions.
They never crossed paths, one coming and one going.
But it was always more about the closer who got sent away than the closer who arrived.
Goodbye Roberto. Hello Kenny G.
Ken Giles and a pair of middling pitching prospects for Roberto Osuna, Mexico-born and Blue Jays-raised from teenager to record save numbers scarcely into his 20s. A gem, too hot for the Jays to handle.
“Honestly, whatever happened before I got here is none of my business,” Giles was saying on Friday, in reference to the co-closer with whom he will always be linked, at least in Toronto and Houston. “I just wanted to take full advantage of what I was given here — a fresh start. Whatever happened before is not my concern.”
Of course not. That domestic assault charge clings to Osuna still, though — his court matter remanded to Tuesday. The reason why one of Toronto’s few surviving marquee assets was peddled at the July 31 nonwaiver trade deadline for returns that seemed dubious. Giles had earlier been demoted to Triple-A Fresno after all, the day after an implosion on and off the mound — three straight singles in the ninth followed by an apparent obscenity-mumble directed at manager A.J. Hinch as he departed the hill. Earlier still in the season, the guy who had shockingly punched himself in the face as he left the mound after another poor performance. Volatile with a capital V. Exchanging an on-field freak for an off-field fiasco.
So, how does that trade measure up so far?
Mirror images, really. Giles, who was a perfect 12 for 12 in saves for the Astros this year — saving was not his problem — has remained pristine, 11- for 11 in save opportunities with Toronto, only closer in baseball who remains save perfect for 2018. Osuna, 9 for 10 as a Blue Jay this season, has gone 9 for 9 with Houston. They could go mound-a-mano when Houston arrives in town Monday for a three-set. But Giles was delighted to get the Astros out of his system.
“I’m actually enjoying the game more than I did for my entire tenure in Houston. It’s kind of weird to say that because I won a World Series with that team. But it’s like, I just felt trapped there. I didn’t feel like myself there. Overall, I felt out of place.”
And no, he doesn’t trace that disorientation to his horrible post-season numbers last year, 10 earned runs in 72⁄ 3 innings, including five runs in 12⁄ 3 innings in the World Series before Hinch stopped going to him after Game 4. He was, after all, the same Giles who’d helped propel Houston into the playoffs with 34 saves and a 2.30 ERA, a flamethrower whose fastball touched 100 m.p.h.
“I felt like that when I got traded there,” says Giles, who’d taken over the closer gig in Philadelphia from Jonathan Papelbon before he was dealt to Houston in a splashy trade. As an Astro, the glitzy closer status always felt tenuous until he lost it for good, as well as his majorleague status.
“It was a tough transition for me,” he recalls. “The first year was decent. The ERA didn’t look great, but I actually had career numbers. Then I stepped it up a notch, had a great full-time closing job, helped them get to the playoffs. And then this year, it was like the communication was lost. Everything went wacko.
“I’m not a guy that points fingers. It just didn’t work out for me.”
Toronto, says Giles, was instantly a nice fit, temperamentally and for pride of baseball, his closer bona fides.
“I come here, they had their arms open to me. They asked me what I wanted to do. And then (manager John Gibbons) saying, you’re the closer, that’s what you were born to do, you’re the man. I said, I’m not going to let you down.”
There was an immediate simpatico with pitching coach Pete Walker as well. Together they fixed the slider that had gone errant, restored its snap with a small mechanical adjustment.
“I knew the things I had to work on,” Giles explains. “I know myself. I’m a really good pitcher, good profile pitcher. If something’s wrong, I know how to fix it. It’s my body.’’
This, he implies, hadn’t happened in Houston and the relationship went downhill from there.
“When I came here, they stayed patient with me. I said, hey, I want to work on this thing till I’m comfortable. All right. OK, I’m comfortable, let’s move on to this next thing. Pitching, you can’t just try to fix everything at once.
“For me, I had to take baby steps to get my groove back. The Jays allowed me to do that. Yeah, the team was out of contention, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still my career. I still have to prove myself. Them being so patient with me, understanding what I want to do, was very, very big.’’
He means, specifically, that management didn’t freak out as his fastball velocity dipped while he was working out those issues. “Eventually, when your body gets comfortable, it’s going to spike back up, which it’s done. My control has been better. My slider’s better. My velo’s back.’’
What the 28-year-old righthander has in common with dearly departed Osuna is that neither was at their best in non-save situations. Those numbers were horrid for Giles in Houston and have stayed icky in Toronto: in seven nonsave situations, his ERA is a bloated 12.00; in 11 save situations, 0.84 ERA.
“It happens to every closer,” shrugs Giles. “It’s one of those things that’s unexplainable for closers. I admit it and I always man up about it. I can do better in those situations. I need to focus more. Go out there and attack rather than thinking I’ve just got to get some work in. But every closer has problems with it. They’ll all tell you the same thing — it doesn’t feel the same, blah-blah-blah.
“I don’t know what it is. I just know I’m getting my job done when they need me.”
Giles acknowledges that he walks along the edge emotionally when on the mound. He seethes.
“Some of those things, in the past, I could have done better to conceal those emotions. But at the end of the day, I’m so passionate about what I do. When I don’t do well for the team, that really irks me. I’m not mad because we lost, I’m mad because I let my team down. If I don’t meet my standards, I’m going to be upset with myself. But the little antics I had with myself, I could have done better concealing them. But it was one of those things, it kept happening over and over. And it builds up. At some point, it has to come out.
“I’ve been a lot better. Staying a lot more calm, collected and focused.’’
And happy, even as his former team rides off toward another post-season with a championship to defend.
“My concern is what I can do for this team in the future. I’m going to put all my heart and energy and blood and sweat and tears into this team. And try to transform this team into something really special.”