One of the things a keen observer might notice before a baseball game is the way players play catch with each other.
Some warm up with short toss and then long, while others pick specific partners to toss with, and often stay with that partner all season.
Aaron Hill and John MacDonald used to toss to each other when they were Jays. Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano do it. The list goes on.
At spring training this season, the Jays’ Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow have formed a similar partnership.
It’s built partly out of symbolism — these two are the team’s top starters, Romero the ace and Morrow the No. 2.
Their throwing partnership reflects the elite status they have achieved coming into the 2012 season. But there was a gap between the two in terms of development and management of their pitching arsenals.
Romero, six years after he was drafted in 2005, enters his third season at the big-league level on the threshold of becoming one of the game’s top left-handers. His 2011 season set him on the path to stardom.
Morrow is expected to arrive at that breakthrough point this season, but the process for him was much more complicated. Where Romero was groomed as a starter from the minor-league level, Morrow changed directions when he was with the Seattle Mariners.
Blessed with 98-m.p.h. stuff, Morrow was an obvious closer in the eyes of Seattle’s development personnel. It wasn’t bad thinking by any means, but somewhere along the line, the organization had a change of heart.
He was traded to Toronto in December 2009 for Brandon League, who became the organization’s closer, leaving him a raw package of power pitches but one with no real developmental roots as either a reliever or starter.
“They took different paths,” said Jays pitching coach Bruce Walton.
“Ricky came into the organization as a starter. He was a starter all the way through the minors. he took to the routine of pitching every five days and the things you have to do in between to be a starting pitcher.
“So he was set on what he needed to do when he got to the big leagues, getting his pitch counts up, the mindset, etc. Whereas Brandon never really had a good plan on which direction they (Mariners) were going with him, and it may have hindered his progress at bit.”
While both pitchers possess major-league fastballs, that developmental difference has left Morrow the difficult task of learning to be a starter.
The polish that Romero has on his pitching is now being fine-tuned down to percentage goals — throwing fastballs for first strikes, and to both sides of the plate. Romero possesses an impressive curve and has arguably the best changeup on the staff too, but his mission is now the same as all great starters, and all great starters build off their fastballs.
You’d think Morrow’s fastball would rocket him to instant success, on par with Romero, but the soft-spoken right-hander continues to learn his craft. Concepts like pitch management, pitch separation (developing the proper dropoff in speed between fastball and changeup) — things that Romero was exposed to in the minors — are relatively new to Morrow.
Morrow threw 111 innings in the minors. Romero tossed 430 innings. That gap itself led to different levels of pitching maturity. And now, Walton is masterfully ushering both along a path where they will soon — the Jays hope — become a powerful and fully rounded one-two combination.
“Ricky is a mature pitcher,” Walton says.
“Spring training is about getting him into game shape, getting his innings up, his fastball location, but not a lot of new things as far as he’s concerned. Other than that, we look at numbers . . . getting better at quality fastballs for strikes, more stats-oriented fastball percentages, fastballs for strikes, breaking balls for strikes, first-pitch strikes.
“Brandon is building a game plan, getting separation from his pitches, how to attack hitters, and get to 21 outs effectively, how we manage the game and getting guys out.
“The juggling of the starting rotation (by the Mariners) forced him to start over again,” Walton added.
“He didn’t get a chance to get sorted out. We’re developing a change-up at the major-league level, which is obviously tougher.”
Now, the two aces are playing catch together, and while it’s certainly symbolic of their pitching stations on the staff, it’s also a recognition of sorts of the catch-up work Morrow has performed so admirably in his short time in Toronto.
“We do talk about it,” Walton said, referring to the leadership expected from the two pitchers.
“Coming into spring training, Brandon had a tremendous finish to last year and put himself in position to get into the two-hole. They are creating that bond, the one-two punch. They bring different components of leadership and I lean on them there to bring it. But not too much pressure . . . we do depend on them for a lot, but you want them to just go out and execute and try not to overdo anything.”
By thestar
