One-batter specialists such as Rays' Trever Miller get little wiggle room: It's succeed, or fail.
By TOM JONES
Published February 28, 2004
[Times photo: Michael Rondou]
Devil Rays relief pitcher Trever Miller, left, often can anticipate when he'll get the call to face his one batter.
ST. PETERSBURG - Imagine being a plumber and getting just one turn of the wrench to fix a leak. One rotation and that's it. Fix the leak and get paid. Don't fix it and lose your job.
Trever Miller knows what that is like. He's a relief pitcher for the Devil Rays. Actually, his job description is a bit deeper than that. "Relief pitcher" suggests he comes in the game in the middle or late innings and pitches until he can't get outs anymore.
No, Miller is more of a "specialist," a pitcher called upon most nights to face one batter. That's it. One batter. Whether he gets the batter out, gives up a hit, induces a double-play grounder or allows a three-run homer, his night is done.
A specialist might throw 10 pitches. Or five. Or one. Or however many it takes to get through the batter at the plate.
"It's like having one Christmas present under the tree," Miller said. "You better not mess it up. You have to open it carefully so you don't break it because it's the only one you're getting."
Long gone are the days when relievers would pitch inning after inning, when a long reliever one day might be the closer the next. Years ago, closers might pitch three innings. Today it's a big deal when a closer comes into the game before the ninth inning.
Everyone whose primary address is a bullpen these days has a specialty. One-inning closers nail down saves. Mopup relievers pitch in blowouts when managers don't want to ruin their bullpens. Setup men pitch the seventh and eighth innings. Long relievers might pitch five innings.
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And then there is the one-batter specialist.
Pitching to one batter isn't the exclusive job description of the specialist. Some nights, a pitcher such as Miller might pitch two or three innings. But, perhaps once a week, a specialist will be called upon to face one batter.
"It's usually a left-handed pitcher," Rays pitching coach Chuck Hernandez said. "It's almost always at a critical part of the game: tying runs on base, late innings. Usually it's a veteran guy. It's almost never a young guy."
Why? Veterans have been around the league. They know the opposing hitters. They have faced them before. The last thing a manager wants late in the game is to send out some nervous kid who never has faced Barry Bonds and to tell him, "Get him out or we lose."
Miller fits the criteria of a perfect one-batter specialist. He's a veteran, a left-hander and has the reliever's bulldog mentality. Last season, the Blue Jays called on Miller 17 times to face one and only one batter.
"You can usually look ahead and see when you might get the call," Miller said. "You get used to the manager and know how he'll use you."
Here's a hypothetical situation: The Rays are leading the Yankees by a run in the sixth inning and starting pitcher Victor Zambrano is growing tired. Miller looks at where the Yankees are in the order and starts to project when he might get the call. He targets the eighth inning, when Zambrano might be out of the game and left-handed slugger Jason Giambi would come to the plate.
"Either way, my routine is the same," Miller said. "And you can't prepare to face just one hitter. What if you get the guy out and then the manager leaves you in?"
"You never want a pitcher to prepare for only one hitter," Hernandez said. "When you bring a pitcher in, you might tell him it's for one guy, but you can't know for sure an inning or two before."
Rays reliever Travis Harper never prepares to face only one hitter, but he has been in one-hitter-only situations.
"My philosophy is to just pitch whenever they bring you in until they take you out," Harper said. "It's easier that way."
Usually, though, a pitcher knows when he is in to face only one hitter. Miller said, of course, the job is to get that hitter out. But not always.
"Sometimes you just don't want to give up a hit," Hernandez said. "There are times when it's better to walk a guy than give up a home run."
"The key is to not give in to the hitter," Miller said.
So even when the one-batter reliever doesn't get out his one batter, it doesn't mean his night was a failure.
Sometimes, though, anything but a double-play ball or a strikeout might be a failure. On those nights, a pitcher comes to the ballpark three hours before the game, sits in the bullpen for three hours, comes in and throws maybe one pitch and loses the game.
"You come in when you're asked, do your best and that's that," Miller said. "No matter what happens, you move on."
After all, he might have get the same hitter - the only hitter - out tomorrow night.
