Pearson plans to strike first this year
Top prospect has learned that his fastball won’t bail him out every time he gets behind
At six-foot-six and 250 pounds, it’s hard to imagine Nate Pearson shrinking into the shadows.
Everything about the strapping flame-thrower is ginormous, from physical dimensions to the velocity on his fastball — 100 mph, meh — to the big hopes he carries as the forecasted future ace of the Blue Jays starting rotation. With gobs of self-confidence to match, he likely will start this year No.2 behind Hyun-Jin Ryu.
Yet there was rookie shyness in 2020, his major-league launch, and the code of clubhouse conduct compels probies to be scarce seen and even less heard.
“I feel like last year I kind of put myself in the corner,” the cherubic-faced 24-year-old said Friday.
He meant, specifically, about not mentioning his niggling aches to the training staff. That might have averted some of the turbulence that ensued in some of his wilder appearances and, predictably, knocked him onto the injured list with a flexor strain in late August.
“I was being a rookie, not really expressing myself and being smart about how to handle my body. Now I’ve learned so much more, especially training here all offseason in the new facility and just getting acclimated. It puts me in a really good spot coming into spring training.”
But, yeah, the injury was alarming. “It was kind of scary at first because I really haven’t had any elbow issues since my surgery in high school. (Fractured elbow, three-inch screw inserted into the back of his ulna, yearlong recovery.) So when I started getting some elbow fatigue or whatever, I didn’t really know exactly what it was.”
There is so much that can go wrong with an arm hurling at inhuman torque and snapping up-down, side-to-side spinning break.
Pearson is from down Tampa way, which put him in close proximity to the Jays’ swanky new player development complex in Dunedin, with its hydrotherapy pools, science labs, five bullpens, a dozen covered batting cages, 20 gang mounds on the side, coaches’ observation tower, even a barber shop. Pity the itinerant Jays can’t actually play their games there, and no telling when the team will be allowed to take residence of the Rogers Centre again.
In any event, the right-hander explained he has learned how to take more vigilant care of his bread ’n’ butter bod, “how to communicate how I’m feeling to the training room” and put everybody “on the same page.”
Nate is feeling ggggreat, if you’re wondering. “I’m 100 per cent healthy.”
Flip back a few pages and two appearances stand out from last season: The five strikeouts through five scoreless innings in his big-league debut, against the Nationals, on July 26, going mano a mano with three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer. The two perfect innings in relief versus the Rays in Game 2 of the American League wild-card series.
Now that was one for the memory bank.
“It meant the world.” In between, there was some … uh … perturbation. Indeed, a glance at his 6.00 ERA in five games (four starts) prompts a double take. Those just aren’t Nate numbers, even if glittery minor-league stats can’t really approximate facing polished big-league pros.
Not to worry, Pearson assures. There was plenty of seasoning in one shortened season, quick studies — augmented by his data devotee nature, availing himself of all the biometric technology to hand — of what worked and where there were lapses.
The heater is the heater, of course, and Pearson’s fourseam fastball was as lights out, as advertised. He used it 50 per cent of the time in a scant 18 innings on the mound, frequently pushing the radar gun into triple digits. Jaws dropped, mouths drooled. The brass turned cartwheels.
Velocity doesn’t cure all ills, though. Good hitters can catch up to the ball and, falling behind on strikes turns the tables lickety-split. As manager Charlie Montoyo observed in his Friday zoom session with reporters, “You don’t want a kid to struggle, but by him struggling he learned a lot. It was a big lesson. It doesn’t matter how hard you throw it in the big leagues, if you don’t get ahead and locate your pitches, you are going to pay the price.
“And he did a little bit and it was a good lesson.”
Pitching isn’t pedantry; the enlightenment is in the doing at an elite level.
“Early last year, I was trying to paint corners too much rather than just fill up the zone with strikes,” Pearson said. “That’s exactly what I did when I came back off the IL, kind of just attacked hitters and filled the zone.”
Mistakes weren’t fatal in the minors; in the majors, thar she goes.
And his stuff was so atomic. “I feel like, coming up in the minors, that was a big stigma for me: ‘He throws hard, he throws hard.’ ”
Like it was a cross to bear? Surely not.
“That’s always a good thing to be known for but I want to be known as a great pitcher. Right now what that looks like for me is pounding the zone and throwing strikes. When I’m attacking the zone, the velo’s going to be there, no doubt.
“In the minors, you can definitely get away with being a little erratic because velo can help you out at times. I definitely learned that up in the big leagues, you can’t just throw it hard and spray a lot. You’ve got to attack the zone, throw strikes and competitive pitches more often than not. There’s a lot of times last year where I would just waste pitches … so it’s all about making those competitive misses as well.”
And if the pitch is awry, still make it useful. “When you miss, don’t miss by a drastic amount.” Pitching inside on a hitter is always preferable than missing over the plate. Brush him off, like. “It serves a purpose.”
It was frustrating, and counterproductive, continually battling back with the fastball or slider, his two top pitches. “I kind of put myself in a corner where I had to throw those two to be competitive.” Again with the corner. “This off-season, I really worked on being able to throw all four for first strikes.”
Fastball. Slider. Changeup. Curve.
Pearson hadn’t been pleased with his secondary pitches. The slider, deployed 36 per cent of the time. was a too often a fretful thing rather than the gotcha killer of salad days. His objective over the winter was rendering it sharper and harder, in the 86 to 88 range, 10 mph slower than his average fastball, to discombobulate the hitter, totally mess up his timing.
“I feel if it goes a little below, around 85, it gets a little too slurvy.”
Honed the curveball too. “It’s come a long way.”
As, accordingly, has Pearson, he avows.
“The only thing I’m really lacking is big-league experience. So I’m excited for this year to get a whole bunch of experience and just learn from it. There will probably be ups and downs but it’s all about riding the wave.”
Hang 10, big boy.