Hoping to be shocked
Right-hander Bolton is back in the team’s prospect pool
It’s understandable that Cody Bolton fell off a few radar screens in the past couple of years. The 23-year-old righthander, like every other minor league player, sat out competition in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead he was stationed at the Pirates’ alternate site for that summer. Then, just before the 2021 season began, he tore meniscus shagging fly balls and was relegated to recovering in Bradenton, Fla., at the Pirates’ spring training facility.
Over that time, he and a few other minor leaguers spent their days rehabbing, then hanging out, going to the beach, doing anything to keep their minds off the fact that they weren’t playing baseball.
This season Bolton, at onetime a top-10 prospect in the Pirates system, is back on the mound. Through 39⅓ innings of work with Class AAA Indianapolis this season, he has a 2.97 ERA. Opponents are hitting just .194 against him. Life is back to normal after a couple of years when his life was decidedly abnormal.
“The first time I played catch, I was a little cautious, just because I didn’t want to overdo something and then tear my knee again, but after the first time, everything felt back to normal,” Bolton said. “Now it feels a lot stronger than ever.”
It helps that Bolton has made some adjustments this season. Through his first seven outings, things weren’t so smooth as he allowed two earned runs or more in four of them, despite pitching fewer than four innings each time. Part of that was a decision to work Bolton back slowly after his injury, building endurance.
The other part, Bolton discovered, was a few of his five pitches were blending into one another. His cutter was acting like his four-seam fastball, and his two-seamer looked like his changeup with only one or two milesper-hour difference between the velocity.
So, Indianapolis pitching coach Dan Meyer proposed a fix: Ditch the cutter and twoseamer for now, and just ride with a four- seam- sliderchangeup arsenal. After all, Bolton feels his changeup has been outlandishly good this season, describing its break as being similar to a lefthander’s slider.
“The changeup has a stupid amount of movement on it right now,” Bolton said. “But I mean, Meyer was like, ‘Why don’t we try and simplify and see how it works? Instead of focusing on five different pitches, let’s focus on three and get your mechanics on point.’ ”
Bolton’s success this season is made more impressive in that he, along with many others in the Pirates system, has bounced between starting and relieving roles this season. On Wednesday he tossed three scoreless innings after entering in the second inning, following an opener.
Bolton says he would rather start every game. Early in the season, he said it was a struggle to come out of the bullpen — it messed with his routine and threw him off a bit. If Wednesday is any indication, he’s figured that part out.
That could be beneficial for Bolton in the near future, too. The Pirates have been in need of reliable pitching all season, and it would be a surprise if that changed any time soon. Someone like Bolton, with good stuff who can pitch in whatever role the Pirates need, could be valuable.
Then again, Bolton is trying his absolute hardest to avoid thinking about that. Especially this season, when the Pirates have been sustained by a steady stream of prospects, it can be easy to look up at the big-league roster and wonder when it will be his time to join it.
Bolton has done his best to stay away from that entirely. In his words, the goal is to stay humble and understand this is supposed to be a game. Plus, Bolton already has a mental picture for how he wants his eventual call-up to go.
“I would rather it be a shock to me,” Bolton said. “I don’t know. I’ve always pictured getting the phone call and told, ‘Alright, you’re going up. You’re next. My main drive is just getting to the big leagues. It’s something that I’ve always wanted since I was a little kid.”
That dream hasn’t been derailed by Bolton’s injuries. If anything, he’s reintroduced himself as a viable big-league option with a strong start to the 2022 campaign.