Knuckling down and handling the curves
There’s not a whole lot of knuckle in J.P. Howell’s knuckle-curve.
This should be taken as reassurance after three seasons of watching R.A. Dickey’s knuckle sandwich being feasted upon at the Rogers Centre.
It is Howell’s bread-and-butter pitch. Of course, Howell is also a lefty reliever and they are a coveted breed, employable until their arms fall off. Or as the veteran puts it with a chuckle: “You get nine lives. I didn’t know that coming in as a rookie. You have no idea how much lefties are valued. If I would have known you get this many opportunities, I might not have been sweating it so much when I was a kid.”
Signed by Toronto as a free agent in late January, Howell is the putative replacement for Brett Cecil — gone off to make his bones as a Cardinal — and ranked considerably ahead of resident bullpen southpaw Aaron Loup.
In any event, the emphasis here is on “curve” rather than “knuckle,” because that’s what defines the knuckle-curve. When thrown from a conventional arm angle, the ball will drop from its trajectory due to topspin. But it looks like a fastball coming out of Howell’s hand and that’s what makes the thing so deceptive for hitters.
“I like to go two-seam curve, so I put my finger here, my finger here, and literally you just come through like a fastball and at the last second you just turn.” He demonstrates. “It spins.” Knuckleballs thrown correctly have no spin. “You have the two-seam spin and then you have the spin the other way. The hitter can’t detect which way. When it happens so quick, they see spin, the same spin as on a fastball. When they see that, they swing early. And then the ball bounces.”
Because every at-bat is a strategic sequence to disrupt timing — at least for finesse pitchers, not flamethrowers — batters who’ve swung through the knuckle-curve have to wait a split second longer on the fastball. “Which makes my 88 fastball look like a 92 or a 91, just because they have to say, ‘What is that?’ And at the last second go.”
His adeptness with the knucklecurve was Howell’s salvation after 2011 surgery for a torn labrum in his pitching arm nearly put an end to his big-league career, due to the attendant loss in velocity. The pitch turns roughly half of the balls put in play against him as groundouts. The 33-year-old Californian hasn’t been on the DL since 2011 either, averaging 64 relief appearances in each of the past five seasons.
“That was real tough,” Howell says of his season on the sidelines. “I thought that my dream was gone. I’d just started to do well, finally. It was kind of a punch in the stomach.”
He moved to Alabama to train with a post-op specialist. “I was there eight hours a day of rehab for nine months. Mentally tough. A lot of fear because I wasn’t financially set or anything like that. I thought my way of income was going to be taken from me. I’d have to go back to school.”
The knuckle-curve, mixed in with a modest fastball and the occasional straight-up curve, was the source of redemption. It’s a pitch he first noticed while watching the College World Series in the mid 1990s. “I saw that pitch when I was 15 years old, this kid from LSU was using it and nobody could hit the thing, even when they knew it was coming. He must have struck out 13, 14 guys.”
Howell taught it to himself. “I just memorized the grip. It was pretty self-explanatory. I already understood the curve but I wasn’t allowed to throw it yet. Right from the start it was a comfort pitch for me.’’
A first-round Kansas City pick in 2005, Howell has toiled through long hitches with Tampa Bay and Los Angeles, segued from starter to closer to mid-reliever and lefty nemesis — they’ve hit just .229 against him. He leads an inquisitor through the ups and downs of his major-league life. “I appreciated starting but the four days in between I had a tough time with. So I went to the bullpen in ’08 and then I just found myself in a lot of (highleverage) situations that I could get out of. And I thrived in that, ended up loving it. And that’s all she wrote.”
Not quite, but the thumbnail sketch will do for now. “It was a long road. It’s never been easy. It’s not like one of those careers where I look back and say, ‘Wow, it was real smooth.’ It wasn’t at all. It was a grind.”
Fortunately, Howell likes grinding. And he’s deeply grateful for the baseball life, with its extensive experience of post-season play. Though not last year when the Dodgers left him off their playoff roster. “I had to support the team’s decision and I wanted to show that I understood that there were guys who deserved it ahead of me. But it still didn’t take away the pain.’’
Howell’s numbers went crooked in 2016, with his ERA climbing to 4.09. “My second and third games of the year, I didn’t get an out and gave up six runs. That’ll do it.” He righted himself through mid-August, then had a couple of bad spells. “You overdo it, then you under-do it, and then you find the medium. The goal is to ride the wave of a good streak for as long as you can.”
The other quality that made Howell attractive to Toronto was the upbeat nature and solid work ethic he brings to the clubhouse and to the bullpen. “He’s a fun-loving guy that everybody likes,” observes manager John Gibbons. “When the game starts, he says all the right things, keeps those guys in line. I’d always heard he’s one of the most un-selfish guys you’ll come across. Never complains. He’s just got that personality.’’
It’s awkward for a modest man to toot his own horn. So Howell describes, instead, the attributes he admires in others.
“People who are grateful. They appreciate that we are in a privileged situation. Look out at most of the world today, people are going 9 to 5, grinding it out. And I’m doing that too. So I better be happy being on a ball field every single day, extremely happy to have this be my office.
“I hope that’s contagious.”