Velasquez going golfing, searching for answers
The commonly deluded duffer, golf gods be damned, works on his or her game essentially for a lifetime. Or until he or she just give up the ghost, whichever comes first.
Vince Velasquez? He’s a young professional pitcher who also is working on his game. And baseball gods be damned, he’s found a new way to get ahead of it... Fore! “I think a round of golf is probably going to solve it,” Velasquez said Sunday after losing his fourth straight decision, a 9-0 clubbing by the St. Louis Cardinals at Citizens Bank Park.
Velasquez was in trouble from the start, loading the bases full of Cardinals before recording
an out. He’d escape that situation with only one run allowed, but before long would be hooked right back into the woods again.
Staying in the swing of things, he was following what’s become the V.V. M.O. - wasting a lot of energy by throwing too many pitches. And when he did throw strikes at least a few of them were grooved too nicely right down the home plate fairway.
So first Brandon Moss powdered one to lead off the fourth inning, which wouldn’t end until a couple of more Cardinals came across the plate.
Then St. Louis’ Stephen Piscotty stepped up in the fifth and deposited another homer for a 5-0 lead.
If you want to view a common thread to Vince Velasquez’s first Phillies season, see that over his first 19 games, which accounted for 102 2/3 innings pitched, he allowed 11 home runs. And while going 16 1/3 innings over his last three games, he gave up eight home runs.
By the way, Velasquez’s ERA over those last three losing games is 10.62.
So is it time for him to maybe just drop back ... and putt?
“You just have to put the pieces together and you have to figure it out,” Velasquez said. “I’ve got to figure them out . ... I know I’ve got to enjoy this adversity here and I’ve got to deal with it; manage to go with the flow and build on it. I am trying to figure it out myself. I can’t give you a solid answer (as to what’s wrong) because no one really knows except me and I don’t really know what it is. So I will take these two days off and probably play a round of golf or something and take my mind off baseball and think what I’ve got to do to bounce back.”
Velasquez, the prized prospect came from Houston via the Ken Giles deal in the offseason, made the club out of spring training and then set everyone on their ears with a complete game, 3-0 shutout of San Diego that featured a stunning 16 strikeouts in his second game of the season. Through his first five starts, he was 4-1 and his ERA was a glittering 1.44.
But he’d win only one of his next seven starts, and the rest of the season for him has been times of hits and misses, slices and hooks. Of course, he’s only 24.
“The way I see it is you’ve got to stay positive,” Velasquez said. “I mean, if you wear yourself down you’re not going to get anywhere. The way I see it is everyone has a turning point; position players, if they make errors or whatever, they have a turning point. Hitting, if you’re sluggish or something like that.
“In my case, it’s pitching . ... I haven’t found that turning point yet. But I have a couple of days off here, and can re-gather, and get back against New York. That’s the way I see it, just try to be optimistic and keep working.”
It’s that very workload that has some people wondering aloud if Velasquez can handle it. Oftinjured as a young prospect and then four years removed from Tommy John surgery, he was promoted by the Astros in June of last season. He’d appear in 19 Astros games, starting seven of them, but logged only 55 2/3 innings for Houston.
Velasquez is up to 113 innings of work this season, with his velocity somewhat down from the start of the year and his command listing badly. It would seem likely fatigue would be a factor, no?
“I don’t think so, no,” Velasquez said. “We have our conditioning; we what we do to prepare for the next start. Velo may go down a little bit but that’s where you have to utilize your secondary pitches. That’s one of the things I couldn’t do today. I was leaving pitches up and getting down in the counts.”
While Velasquez feels he’s sound of body at this late seasonal date — and let’s face it, the beat-up Phillies are so starter poor right now, he isn’t about to say he’s tired even if he was dragging out there - he is honest enough to admit that maybe his head hasn’t been in the right place when it comes to pacing himself.
To Velasquez, that wonderful 16-strikeout game perhaps pumped him up a bit too much with ego-infused energy too early, and now it’s time for him to start making serious adjustments in approach.
“I got 16 strikeouts; cool. But now people are going to start timing you,” he said. “That’s where you have to mix your pitches and make your secondary pitches. People watch film. I watch film. I know how hitters are and they know how I throw. They know what I like to do and what I like to use. I have to catch them off guard. I can’t just throw fastballs all the time.”
It was that natural heat of his that mowed down the Padres back on that April 14 day at Citizens Bank Park. Now that it’s so much hotter out on that mound, however, it’s probably time to forget all about the past and look ... well, fore-ward.
“It might have happened too early,” Velasquez said of his 16-K gem. “That was early in the season and that was great; that was a heck of an experience. But now it’s time to bear down and execute my secondary pitches and protect my fastball. Hopefully.”