MAKING HIS BEST PITCH
Ex-Jay returns to the mound
Two weeks ago, Canadian baseball icon Larry Walker issued an edict on Twitter to the nation’s sports media.
Stop what you’re doing, Walker ordered, and tell the world about Adam Loewen.
He called Loewen an “amazing story” and added: “EVERY sports writer should write about him.” Consider it done, Mr. Walker, sir. For Adam Loewen’s story is indeed amazing, and, in its details, perhaps unprecedented in modern baseball history.
“I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that don’t really realize what’s happened that I need to contact,” Loewen says. “I’ve tried to thank everyone that’s helped me along the way.”
Seven years have passed since Loewen last pitched in the big leagues.
In the interval, he had turned to hitting, playing the outfield for five seasons, including a 14-game stopover in 2011 with the Blue Jays, for whom he hit a home run.
Now he’s back on the mound in the majors as a reliever with the Phillies, his arm feeling different this time. The difference? “It doesn’t hurt,” he said. It was when that pain first became too much that Loewen’s improbable journey began.
The bankers of baseball minutiae at the Elias Sports Bureau say they can’t be sure how many players have done what Loewen has done — make it to The Show as a starting pitcher, make it back again as a hitter and then, one more time, as a relief pitcher.
Babe Ruth was a little too good as a hitter to go back to pitching. Rick Ankiel had one fine year as a pitcher, then suddenly couldn’t find the strike zone and went on to a seven-year career as an outfielder.
The folks at Elias say the last player to go pitcher-hitter-pitcher was Johnny Lindell, who died in 1985, the year after Adam Loewen was born in Surrey, B.C.
Lindell pitched very briefly at the start of his career, spent 10 years as an outfielder and finished up as a pitcher, going 12-34 — with 30 complete games — in the early 1950s.
Loewen was the top draft pick of the Orioles in 2002. He was, and is again, a left-handed pitcher who stands 6-foot-6 and speaks in a voice that, in another era, might sing bass in a doo-wop group. The Orioles drafted him fourth overall; no Canadian has ever been picked higher.
He was 18. By 22, he was in Baltimore’s rotation. By 24, he had suffered two stress fractures in his elbow. The first time, he had it repaired. He has the screw in the joint to prove it. The second time, the pain became too much.
“I remember it was basically pitch to pitch: How am I going to get through this, for like a month?” he said, standing at his locker in the Phillies clubhouse. “Now I can concentrate on what I’m doing and the task at hand, and think through scouting reports in my head before a hitter gets up to the plate, rather than thinking my arm’s going to fall off the next pitch.”
Quitting baseball was never an option.
Loewen had been a terrific amateur hitter. The Jays gave him a chance to do that as a pro, providing a two-year minor-league contract to give him time, and he got good at it again. After three years in the minors, he earned a September call-up in 2011. But by the winter of 2013, he was jobless, ready to look for work in an independent league as a two-way player. He would pitch every five days and hit on the other four.
In the spring of 2014, he told Greg Hamilton, the head man at Baseball Canada, that he was throwing bullpens again, and Hamilton told Pat Gillick, then a Phillies senior adviser, and Gillick called Loewen. He said the Phillies would send a scout to watch him throw.
“Brightened up my day,” Loewen recalled.
Last year, he posted a 3.26 ERA in 19 minor-league games; this year, he has a 2.01 ERA in 40 games, mostly at Triple-A.
Two weeks ago, the Phillies called Dave Brundage, Loewen’s Triple-A manager. Brundage was playing a morning round of golf at the time and didn’t have his phone. When he retrieved it, he had 10 missed calls from his bosses in Philadelphia. They wanted Loewen.
“He told me the good news and I could tell he was really happy for me,” Loewen said. “He knew how much I went through during the course of this year because he was the one that sent me down to (Double-A) Reading in May. It was a good feeling for the both of us.”
Loewen had been sent down to Reading to work with pitching coach Dave Lundquist in a bid to cut down his walks. Lundquist and Loewen developed what Loewen called “a special connection.” They also tweaked his leg kick to smooth out his delivery. Soon, back at Triple-A, his ERA was tumbling.
About that time, Hamilton invited him to join Team Canada for the Pan Am Games. Loewen weighed his decision for two weeks, but decided to stay with the Phillies. At 31, he knew this was probably his last chance to get back to the majors. He didn’t want the Phils to bypass him while he was away with the national team.
And two weeks ago, as he sat in a coffee shop in Toledo, Ohio, killing time before his Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs played the Toledo Mud Hens, the call came.
“My reaction,” he said, “was euphoric.”
His first two outings with the Phillies were rough. His next two were better. On Tuesday, he worked an uneven but scoreless inning against the Blue Jays. He hit a batter and walked another, but he also struck out the side.
His repertoire is the same as when he started: a fastball in the low 90s, a curveball, slider and change-up in the low 80s. The record shows he may even throw his fastball a little harder than he did with Baltimore.
He was asked, after such a long and meandering odyssey, whether he feels like a major-league pitcher again.
“I think I’ve felt like a big-league pitcher for awhile,” he replied. “I felt like I was a big-league pitcher when I was 22, and then when I was 23, when I was 24, not so much, because I was dealing with some stuff and wasn’t pitching well.
“But I always knew it was in there. And then to finally get back here and feel comfortable and be able to function mentally on the mound, and not just be overwhelmed, is a good feeling.” Now he has bigger goals. “As far as accomplishing anything, it’s one thing to get back to the big leagues, and it’s another to stay here, and it’s another to be really good here. And I feel like that’s what I set out to do. Getting here is great, but the ultimate goal is to be really good here.”
Loewen still welcomes the occasional chance to swing the bat. On Aug. 11, he got to hit for himself in a game against the Diamondbacks.
“I broke my bat and hit into a double-play,” he said. “It was pretty embarrassing.”
Loewen knows first-hand how the other half lives. He’s working to be really good at the pitching half again.
It’s one thing to get back to the big leagues, and it’s another to stay here, and it’s another to be really good here. And I feel like that’s what I set out to do.