Indians’ Sowers growing up fast
Friday, July 28, 2006
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[FONT=Verdana, Times New Roman, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]By Andy Call REPOSITORY SPORTS WRITER[/FONT]
The kid sitting in the fifth row back on the left side obviously had boarded the wrong bus.
He sat with his knees pressed against the seat in front of him, eyes closed, sequestered from the world by IPod headphones. His suit, a bit too large, hung on his bony frame.
The top of his head was covered by only a few surviving nubs of hair, the classic “summer haircut” for kids whose parents don’t wish them to overheat while playing outside.
This was not the bus to Central High, however. This was the Cleveland Indians team bus, engine idling as it prepared to take millionaire major-league ballplayers to the Metrodome for a Sunday afternoon game against Minnesota.
Veteran pitcher Paul Byrd climbed aboard, looked around at the passengers and grinned. He tapped someone in the front seat on the shoulder.
“Look back there,” Byrd said, pointing to the kid in the fifth row on the left side. “That’s our starting pitcher today.”
Jeremy Sowers, the most unlikely passenger on a big-league bus, looked quite bit older six days later. The kid with the summer haircut fired fastballs, sliders and changeups past the Twins for 2 1/2 hours at Jacobs Field, working a complete-game four-hit, 11-0 victory against the hottest team in baseball.
Sowers returns to the mound tonight, when the Indians host Seattle at 7:05 at Jacobs Field..
“Jeremy is an even-keeled kid, confident but humble,” Cleveland Manager Eric Wedge said. “He’s a professional in terms of his approach and demeanor. He’s a smart kid who’s going to continue to learn.”
The words “kid” and “professional” are not always synonymous in baseball, but Sowers is no ordinary pitcher. He is 23 but looks much younger and pitches much older.
“It starts with command,” Indians pitching coach Carl Willis said. “He kept Minnesota guessing. He would throw strike one and not get into deep counts.”
Sowers is not a young gun with a rifle arm and no brains who rode a 98 mph fastball to the big leagues. He was a first-round draft pick out of Vanderbilt in 2004 but got to the majors by throwing a variety of pitches at unexpected times and putting them exactly where he wanted.
Because he can’t simply fire fastballs past hitters, however, Sowers also must endure some hard nights of on-the-job training. In his two starts preceding the gem against Minnesota, the left-hander from Louisville, Ky., had given up seven runs in 3 1/3 innings to Baltimore and five runs on 11 hits in seven innings against the Twins.
“There will be bumps in the road,” Sowers said. “There already have been.”
As Sowers studies both his opponents and himself, however, he almost certainly will get better.
“As he starts to have some history with each club, he’ll have a better idea of how his stuff plays and what he needs to do,” Willis said.
“You try to watch 15 or 20 minutes of video to at least have an idea of what the hitters will do, but you still have to pitch to what your strengths are,” Sowers said.
The fastball was not considered one of Sowers’ primary strengths before last week. He rarely threw one above 85-to-87 mph, although he could place the pitch on almost any portion of the plate he desired. But, somehow, Sowers added some zip over the course of a week. At least one of his fastballs against Minnesota was clocked at 92 mph, and several crossed the plate at 91.
“I was impressed that he maintained that velocity the entire game,” Willis said. “The crispness of his fastball really stood out. He was coming right at them and making them put the ball in play.”
Sowers and Willis already have made one slight adjustment in pitching mechanics, encouraging Sowers to “stay tall,” or remain in a fully upright position longer as he prepares to release the ball.
“Doing that creates more downhill action on his delivery and sink on his pitches,” Willis said. “(The Twins) had to work harder to get the ball in the air.”
“That’s what baseball is, a game of adjustments,” Sowers said. And as the kid establishes himself in the big leagues, more Indians players are going to adjust to the idea of seeing him on their bus. Reach Repository sports writer Andy Call at (330) 580-8346 or e-mail:
[email protected]
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