Phillies farmhand Alberto Tirado glad he didn't quit
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Alberto Tirado threw 14 pitches, five for strikes. He was lost. It was the end of last April, and the Phillies had seen enough. Tirado, as a reliever in low-A Lakewood's bullpen, had allowed opponents that month to reach base at a .500 clip.
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Alberto Tirado threw 14 pitches, five for strikes. He was lost. It was the end of last April, and the Phillies had seen enough. Tirado, as a reliever in low-A Lakewood's bullpen, had allowed opponents that month to reach base at a .500 clip.
The hard-throwing righthander was exiled to extended spring training.
"I wanted to stop playing baseball," Tirado said Thursday after pitching a scoreless inning in an exhibition game against the University of Tampa. "I wanted to go home because I wasn't myself. Mentally, I was off baseball. I couldn't do it."
But the Phillies believed in his electric yet unpolished arm, faith that later resulted in a spot on the 40-man roster. That was implausible last summer. Carlos Arroyo, a roving pitching coach who has spent 42 years in the Phillies organization, greeted Tirado in Florida.
"I'll take you to the airport right now," Arroyo told Tirado. "That's what you want?"
Tirado demurred.
"Sometimes," Arroyo said Thursday, "you have to tell them the truth."
Now, Tirado is grateful for that. The Dominican remains nothing more than a lottery ticket, the kind of arm that occupies dreams this time of year. The Phillies fielded a lineup full of prospects in a 6-0 win over a college team in a seven-inning scrimmage at Spectrum Field. There was Roman Quinn, flashing speed and power. Dylan Cozens crushed a home run to center. Scott Kingery roamed second base like a seasoned veteran. Nick Williams drew a walk.
And Tirado, one of the youngest players in camp, threw a few baseballs hard. He is a quintessential power pitcher, blessed with a blazing fastball but not the foresight of where those fastballs may go. He threw strike one to a college batter Thursday, then fired four erratic fastballs. One skipped to the backstop.
"He has a strong arm," catcher Jorge Alfaro said afterward.
That was his way of showing kindness to Tirado, 22, who has so much progress to make. He induced a double-play ball after the walk and then a pop-out to end his inning.
The numbers from a season ago, at first glance, are eye-popping. He struck out 35 percent of the batters he faced. He walked 14 percent of them. He plunked nine batters and uncorked 12 wild pitches in 64⅔ innings.
Opponents batted .217 with a meager .302 slugging percentage against him. At times, he was so wild that he was unhittable.
But there were deeper trends in the numbers. Tirado saved his season during the two-month exile to the Carpenter Complex.
"A couple of things happened that made me desperate," Tirado said through an interpreter. "They kept telling me I needed to control myself. The whole time they tried to calm me down, have me throwing strikes. They wanted me to throw a lot of pitches. A lot of pitches. And that's what I did."
Arroyo, along with minor-league pitching coaches Rafael Chaves and Ray Burris, remade Tirado's mechanics so they were repeatable. They tested him with two outings for high-A Clearwater at the end of May. It was a disaster; Tirado struck out six, walked six, and allowed six runs in 3⅓ innings.
So it was back to extended spring training. The coaches added more structure. Tirado became a starter, the role he filled for three seasons in the Toronto organization before the Phillies acquired him in a trade for Ben Revere.
It stuck.
Tirado returned to Lakewood with purpose. He started 11 games there and posted a 2.19 ERA. He struck out 37 percent of the hitters he faced, a staggering number for a starting pitcher. He lowered his walk rate to 11 percent, still high but an improvement. He mixed a wipeout slider with his fastball that sits in the mid-90s and can reach 100 mph. He showed enough for the Phillies to protect him from possible selection in the Rule 5 draft.
That afforded him a chance to attend big-league camp. His stay will be short; Tirado will be one of the first cuts. He is ticketed for Clearwater's rotation. Arroyo, who worked to rebuild Tirado's confidence in intrasquad games at the complex, saw a young pitcher develop mental toughness at his lowest point.
"They convinced me to give it another try," Tirado said. "That's why I didn't go home. I'm thankful they talked to me about it."
@MattGelb