DETROIT ? Long before Ryan Vogelsong went to Japan, before he had his elbow cut, before those years of misery in Pittsburgh or those two sets of Triple-A walking papers that forced him to look up to find the end of his rope?
He went to lunch. With Mark Gardner.
?Gardy and I were teammates,? said Vogelsong, on the eve of his first World Series start. ?That?s how we met for the first time. I was just a young pup then, and Gardy was one of our starters and he took me under his wing right away.
?He was one of those guys I bounced questions off a lot, and not just about pitching but making sure I was in the right place at the right time in spring training, and going through the drills and everything.?
Recalled Giants GM Brian Sabean: ?Looking back, Gardy shepherded a lot of the younger guys, whether it was taking them to lunch or dinner. You could tell he was someone who would stay in the game after he was done playing.?
Vogelsong still calls Gardner a friend, but not a teammate. The former right-hander from Fresno is the Giants? bullpen coach now, although in practice he is nearer to being a co-pitching coach along with Dave Righetti.
Righetti is getting another national upwelling of well-deserved accolades, now that the Giants? starting pitchers are punching up their performance once again with the baseball world watching. The Giants rotation is 5-0 with a 0.55 ERA and a .195 opponent?s average over the past five games ? three elimination victories against the St. Louis Cardinals to burglarize the NL pennant, and then a pair of tone-setting wins at home against the Detroit Tigers to set the tone in the World Series.
Barry Zito, Vogelsong, Matt Cain, Zito again and Madison Bumgarner have combined to issue just six walks and strike out 30 in 33 innings. They haven?t allowed a single home run over that span.
It?s a dominant run that club officials worried wouldn?t be possible, given the way so many of their arms lagged through September. Vogelsong was as lost as any of them, posting a 10.31 ERA over a seven-start span from mid-August to mid-September in which opponents hit .366 against him.
But Vogelsong kept after the flaws that had crept into his delivery, and after finishing the regular season by flashing power stuff in his last three starts, he has parlayed his hard, moving arsenal into a tremendous postseason. Vogelsong is 2-0 with a 1.42 ERA in three playoff starts, including a dominant effort against the Cardinals in Game 6 of the NLCS that kept the Giants alive.He credits two people who have known him since the first day he stepped in big league camp as a wide-eyed kid.
?I think they balance each other well,? said Vogelsong, who rejoined the Giants on a minor league deal last year to begin his inspiring renaissance. ?Gardy, he?ll get into a lot of the mechanical stuff with you, and Rags is more on the mental side. He does some mechanical stuff as well, but Rags is more of ? he?s been through everything in this game that you can do as a pitcher. He?s closed, he?s started, middle relief. There?s nothing as a staff we are going to encounter that this guy hasn?t done in the game. That goes for Gardy as well, who relieved and started.
?You know, I think they bounce things off each other all the time, and they come up with what they think is the best solution if there?s a problem going on. I know I go to both of them because I want to try to get as much information as possible. They do a tremendous job with our staff.?
They?ve been doing it a long time. How many bullpen coaches are on their third manager, instead of vice versa? And Righetti, with 13 seasons, ranks as the longest tenured pitching coach with his current club, now that Dave Duncan has taken a leave of absence from the Cardinals.Sabean is frustrated that Righetti, and bench coach Ron Wotus, have not received more interest on the major league managerial carousel. Then again, it?s not like he wants to see either man go.
?On the pitching side, we have two guys who are very patient, they?re good at their craft and also aggressive when need be when they feel adjustments need to be made,? Sabean said. ?The players trust them. They have confidence in their acumen in helping to turn them around, and the manager cooperates and goes with their lead.?
That was never more evident than this postseason, when Righetti told Bochy that Zito would give them a chance to bring them back from Game 5 in St. Louis. The left-hander responded with 7 2/3 shutout innings.
The Giants had to extend themselves to a seventh game to beat the Cardinals, so they didn?t have the luxury to set up their rotation for the World Series as the Tigers did. The Giants faced a soft spot for Game 2, and Bumgarner already had been yanked from the playoff rotation after getting battered for an 11.25 ERA in two starts, including 15 hits and three homers in just eight innings.But Gardner worked with Bumgarner on shortening up his torso rotation, Righetti helped him sharpen his slider just enough and the results in three bullpen sessions were encouraging enough.
Righetti recommended that Bumgarner take the ball. Just based on numbers alone, it would be like driving the jet fuel truck into a structure fire. But Bochy acted with faith, and Bumgarner rewarded it. The Tigers managed two hits in seven innings against the left-hander.
[EXTRA BAGGS: Giving rope to Bumgarner, etc.]
Now Righetti is getting the laurels. But save some for Gardner, too.
Gardner is just happy he's seeing the starters perform to their capabilities.
?We knew going into the playoffs the starting pitching would be so important,? Gardner said. ?You only go as far as they take you. And September, yeah, it was rough on them and you knew that going in. But there were times the bullpen stepped it up for them, and now you see they?re doing it.?
What gives Gardner such an eye for mechanics? Well, perhaps it?s because he was a shortstop at Fresno State who was learning pitching from scratch. He didn?t have to unlearn bad habits.
?They had us work with another guy and watch them, observe, and I think it started then,? Gardner said. ?You learn early on that everybody has their own style, but there are parts of a delivery you need to do. You have to have an eye for it and try to pass it along.?
Balance. Stride. Release point. Where you are when your foot hits the ground. When your hands separate, and where they are at every point in your motion.
?It?s all part of making a pitch,? Gardner said. ?With these guys here, all of them made 30 starts so you know every one of them is going to have a rough spot. But we?ve been lucky with these guys. They?ve been outstanding and durable and they get their work done, so it?s easy to have guys like that.?
It won?t be easy this offseason, though ? especially when it concerns Tim Lincecum, who has been successful in a relief role this postseason but plummeted from one of the league?s most effective aces to a pitcher whose shocking, 5.18 ERA was the highest among all qualified NL starters.
It?ll be up to Lincecum to tweak his mechanics and reinvent himself as a pitcher this offseason.?He?s just in transition,? Sabean said. ?He?s going to have to learn how to pitch with less velocity and he?ll have to get his arm or his release point in a better spot to make pitches. Because it?s about throwing strikes with consistency, and in his case he?s not going to miss as many bats. So he?s going to have to be resourceful and try to throw fewer pitches per at-bat and play to contact.?
Lincecum tends to adhere to his own process and listen to his own voices. But Righetti will lend his, and he?ll channel Gardner?s thoughts along the way.
Who knows? Maybe a nice, leisurely lunch would help, too.
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