Bierbrodt is back, better than before

After wildness and shooting, Rays pitcher gives up nothing in two innings.

By MARC TOPKIN, Times Staff Writer

© St. Petersburg Times
published March 6, 2003

BRADENTON -- This, Nick Bierbrodt said, was no big deal. Forget the stunning wildness that forced him off the mound last spring and tormented him every night. Forget the long jagged scar on his stomach and the two bullets still lodged in his liver from the June 7 shooting that he was lucky to survive. Forget the skeptics and the cynics who doubted he could resurrect a career in double jeopardy.

This was about pitching.

Bierbrodt made it back to the mound when the Devil Rays played the Pirates on Wednesday, and the best thing that could be said about his two innings was that there was nothing to say.

No runs. No hits. No walks.

No problems.

"I don't think it's too newsworthy," Bierbrodt said. "I'm just out here trying to have fun, throw strikes and do what I used to do."

A 24-year-old who mixes California cool with a "what-me-worry?" attitude, Bierbrodt hasn't been one to obsess about his comeback, finding the coverage vaguely amusing and even mixing in an occasional wisecrack of his own about having the (radar) guns on him.

His story is that the wildness was cured before he went to Charleston, S.C., on the rehab assignment in June, that the bullet wounds were healed by the time he started playing catch in October and totally forgotten when he began throwing off a mound in late January, and that he expected to be back with the team this spring pitching for a spot in the rotation, and he's sticking to it.

"I was looking for this to happen," he said. "It was my goal to be here and compete."

Nine months after the shooting, Wednesday's game was something of a rebirth of his career. He insisted he wasn't nervous, concerned or worried, simply figuring he'd continue the solid work he had been doing in practice.

His only pregame thoughts?

"I just told myself to get the first one over the (expletive) plate," he said, "and then I didn't do that."

He missed low and inside on the first two pitches to Jason Kendall, then got him to ground out. He started Jack Wilson with a ball, got ahead and got a flyout. He threw a first-pitch strike to Brian Giles, missed outside with two balls, then got a fly to left.

He started the second inning with a 3-0 count to Aramis Ramirez but got him out, and Reggie Sanders and Kevin Young, too. Bierbrodt threw 22 pitches for the day, 10 that missed the strike zone, but nothing like his final two outings last spring when he walked 12 of 20 batters, hit three and missed on 61 of 86 pitches.

(As a bonus, he also batted for the first time in two years, trying to bunt but ending up with a walk.)

"He made some good pitches, hit some spots, didn't walk anybody and he's got a big smile on his face, so it was a good day," pitching coach Chris Bosio said.

Manager Lou Piniella said he was impressed by what Bierbrodt did, as well as how he did it. And then he made it clear how big an accomplishment it was.

"He had a good lively fastball and he worked on his breaking ball and changeup a little bit, but the most important thing was that his mound presence was really, really good. So we're very pleased," Piniella said.

"I'm actually counting on Nick to be one of our starters, so let's hope he keeps progressing. Very encouraging today."

Bierbrodt insisted it was just another day, that he didn't do anything worthy of special attention.

He explained that the loss of control was baffling, that he thought it was more physical than mental, that Rays minor-league coach Joe Coleman, who had a little bit of the same problem during his career, helped him through it, that he didn't really know a lot about other guys who struggled such as Mark Wohlers and Rick Ankiel but that he knew he was better now.

"The only time it's brought up is when I see it in the paper," he said.

The comeback from the shooting might be equally as remarkable and headline-grabbing, given the circumstances (he was sitting in taxicab going through a fast-food drive-through) and how narrowly he avoided serious injury or death (the bullets missing his aorta by millimeters). But, as Bierbrodt said, he's not the only pitcher in the Rays clubhouse to be doing that.

"You guys should be interviewing Delvin James, too, then," he said.

So what, in Bierbrodt's opinion, would be newsworthy?

"I think me making the team probably would be a good story," he said. "I can understand that being a good story."

Actually, it's going to take more to top what he's done so far.

"I've got to up myself one," Bierbrodt said. "I would think maybe save a nun from a drive-by or something."