COMMAND TO CONQUER
Q&A: After a rocky rookie year, Luzardo knows key to a strong bounce-back
Jesús Luzardo got a few rookie of the year votes. His mind-bending slider and changeup made for compelling highlights, and he impressed in his ability to learn quick and, often, on the fly.
But the 23-year-old’s rookie year wasn’t all he’d hoped it would be.
For Luzardo, the success coaches and teammates know he’s capable of will come once he gets back to his bread and butter.
The constraints and strangeness of a 60game season impacted by coronavirus protocols had its effect on every player. In retrospect, we may ask how to quantify success and failure in year that can only be defined now as a statistical anomaly. But for rookies hoping to start sprinting into the big leagues, the unprecedented year was hardly the best runway.
That’s no excuse. But its fueling players like Luzardo, who had dominant stuff during a brief 2019 debut, lost his command and feel for his breaking ball in 2020 and struggled to find the time and space to get it back again.
Luzardo spent the offseason back home
in South Florida, working, golfing and “crushing Survivor” with his best friend and roommate A.J. Puk. But, most importantly, he spent his days under the hot Florida sun to find again the breaking ball that stunned the baseball world during his call up. Here’s more in a conversation we had with the left-handed phenom before he left the east coast to report to Arizona.
Q: Now that you’ve had some time to reflect on your rookie season, what’s your biggest takeaway from what you’ve been able to accomplish?
A: “It was definitely tough. You have to take away certain positives, especially from a year like last year. Staying healthy all year was a goal of mine, whether for 60 or 162 games.
Even though it was 60 games, it’s my rookie season regardless. I learned about the pressure and how that boils down at the end of the season and postseason. I didn’t have to miss a portion of the season. I didn’t have to jump into an unfamiliar situation. I wasn’t sent back to Arizona. I was able to stay and be myself.”
Q: What was some of the best advice that you got from someone on the big league team?
A: “For me, Yusmeiro Petit taught me how to have a routine. Everyone has a routine, but he’s so strict with his. To see him do that and take care of his body, and then seeing all the appearances he’s made over the last two years, taught me a lot about discipline. Unfortunately his routine involves a lot of running.”
Q: Felix Hernandez and Johan Santana were your idols growing up. What pitchers in the game today inspire you? Which ones impress you most?
A: “If I see Jacob degrom is pitching, I’ll turn on the TV. If Trevor Bauer is pitching, turn on the TV. And, obviously, all my teammates inspire me. Chris Bassitt, last year, was unbelievable to watch. Every time he pitched I was dissecting his outings.
It’s just how they play with their stuff. Seeing the way they sequence guys and play their changeup and slider off a fastball, I enjoy watching that.”
Q: What are you working on in particular this offseason and what what could you take away from what you did last season and build on?
A: “For me it’s about finding my breaking ball again. Getting back to my bread and butter, what I was doing when I was called up in 2019. I want to be able to find that slider again. Mix that up with my changeup again that I had last year that was pretty good along with fastball command. Those three things are my key goals.”
Q: When you say that you want to find it again, do you feel like you made progress on that last year? Or did the short season inhibit growth?
A: “In the offseason I made strides getting it all back. I feel good where it’s at now. Last year, I don’t know what it was but I got away from myself and things started to change.”
Q: What was the biggest wake up call for you in your rookie year? What changed for you?
A: “Realizing that you have to be able to go out there every five days and compete no matter who’s out there. That’s something I always knew, but when you get to the big leagues it’s a lot tougher than you think. My first wake up call was when I gave up seven runs to the San Francisco Giants. It was a wake-up call that hadn’t happened to me yet. I’m glad it did to be honest.”
Q: What are the positives that you can take from that experience against the Giants?
A: The benefit is that you stay out there, you give them runs and still have to compete and get the next guy out. You can’t give up and say, ‘I’m done, I gave up five and that’s it.’ We came back and won that game. You never know when Stephen Piscotty is going to hit a grand slam.
Q: If I remember correctly the Giants were feasting on your fastball. What kind of adjustment did you make after that?
A: After that I worked on commanding my fastball more. My fastball command wasn’t great there, and none of my pitches really were other than my changeup and you can’t overuse that. I felt like I started to mix and sequence my pitches better, not being so repetitive and locating my fastball better to make it tougher.
Q: What did you learn about yourself mentally after that or after any start in the season?
A: I learned that I’m pretty good at letting it go. Everyone struggles, I’ve struggled, but I felt it was always in my head. Those five days after you give up all the runs, you just want to go back out there. But I did a good job of turning the page.
Being friends with (Mike) Fiers, (Frankie) Montas, (Chris) Bassitt, they all said they’ve struggled. They helped me out and told me to forget about it. Me being pretty stubborn, once I get that through my head, it was easy to turn the page.
Q: What was your favorite outing that you had last year?
A: My favorite was the one in Texas when I gave up three runs early in the game and came back with 6 2/3 innings. I think it was one or two after my Giants start. I was proud that I could stop the bleeding at the beginning and keep it going.
Q: At some point you just decided to adopt a whole new slider grip. How common is that for you to teach yourself something new in the middle of a season? Not only that, but right before a start?
A: “Extremely, extremely rare. I don’t think I’ve ever done it. It was just something I picked up that day and felt good. I think that was a weird thing for me, but I’m glad it worked out because I was searching for something in the moment. But I don’t plan on doing that much often.
Very few guys try to do that. I just started throwing it in the bullpen before a start and asked the catcher, ‘Does that look good?’ he said, ‘Yeah,’ and I said, ‘Alright, I changed the grip so let’s just go with it.’
“Q: How do you feel about the team as it stands now? You lost Khris Davis, Marcus Semien, Liam Hendriks and a bunch of other guys. But what was it like to watch those guys leave from afar?
A: “It’s tough. Marcus was a captain. So, it’s tough to see these guys leave. I’m happy that a lot of them went on and made a lot of money, which is good for them. But at the end of the day I think you know the guys that we have now, we still have a strong core group of young guys. Guys that we know can get the job done. I know we’ve gotten a few pieces here and there, but we’re confident in what we have.”
Q: How did the team react when, when Semien signed with with Toronto and when you heard about the Khris Davis trade?
A: “We’re all happy for for Marcus. For KD, we’re gonna miss him. We told him we’re going to miss him. that was a good friend of mine that was someone that I was pretty close with on the team. Sad to see him leave but I’m sure we’ll get to see him in Dallas when we play the Rangers.”
Q: You’ll get to face him, probably.
A: “That’s one thing I am not looking forward to.”
Q: And you lived with A.J. Puk during the offseason?
A: “Yeah, We’ve been working out in Jupiter together. I’ve been working on getting my slider back and fastball command. But the slider was like my main goal and make my mechanics repeatable as well. Puk was my throwing partner for most of the offseason and he looks good, healthy. He’s been feeling really good, so I’m excited for him.”
Q: You’ve been with him for a lot of his injury woes. Tommy John, now the shoulder surgery. How is he handling it from your perspective?
A: “He’s a warrior. He’s battled with a lot of injuries, and he keeps his mind sane somehow. But hopefully he doesn’t have to go through that again.”
Q: How was your offseason just in terms of staying sane during the pandemic?
A: “I mean it wasn’t too bad. Played a lot of golf. It was basically: wake up work out. Throw, then play golf. That was our day. I golf with A.J. and some friends from back home that I grew up with. I’ve gone golfing with them every offseason. Sometimes my dad will play.”
Q: You guys and A.J. have bonded over the years?
A: “Yeah. No 100%. We’re two really good friends. I’m from South Florida, I’m sixfoot and Spanish. He’s from Cedar Rapids, he’s six-foot-nine, tall, white. When we go eat, people are like, ‘What is this? What’s going on? How are you guys friends?’
“Q: What TV shows have you been watching?
A: “We’ve actually been crushing “Survivor.” Yeah, like season one to season 14.”
Q: Any new music?
A: “A.J. is big on that underground rap stuff. And I’m just all over the place. I listen a little bit everything. R& b, rap Spanish music. I’m not like an expert on underground rap by any means but I need A.J. to school me a little bit.”