Friday, April 16, 2010
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
SAN FRANCISCO -- Loser.
It is a tag commonly applied to Zach Duke, and it does not make for much of a fit.
Sure, his 11-16 record last season represented the most losses of any National League pitcher. But it also came within the context of a 99-loss nosedive for the Pirates, the trading away of some of the best gloves behind him, and the offense giving him all of 23 runs of support in those 16 losses.
Peter Diana / Post-GazetteBack in 2005, Zach Duke went 8-2 as rookie for the Pirates, but he led the National League in losses last season.
On the positive side, that record also came within the context of his first All-Star selection -- and remember, he was the Pirates' second player chosen, not the usual obligatory one -- as well as three complete games, a 4.06 ERA and a staff-high 213 innings.
And now, here is Duke at 2-0 with a 3.00 ERA, the opening-day victor and very clearly the only bright spot in a rotation in which no other starter has won a game and the rotation's combined ERA is 8.46.
Loser?
"Nobody in here has ever thought of Zach that way," catcher Ryan Doumit said. "He's a very capable of pitcher, and we've seen that in the past. And we expect more big things from him this year."
"With Zach, he understands the importance of going deep into games," fellow left-hander Paul Maholm said. "You can't control wins and losses, but you can go seven, eight innings, and he does that. He brings that to this team all the time, and he's on a little roll already."
For even further context, try to picture how Duke's talents would play out in another uniform, that of a contender as opposed to a perennial ... well, loser.
It might not require much imagination.
Duke currently is in his second year of arbitration eligibility, making $4.3 million on a one-year contract. After the third year of arbitration, he can be a free agent, meaning after the 2011 season.
Two winters ago, when management signed Doumit, Maholm and outfielder Nate McLouth to multiyear extensions, Duke was the only one in that experience bracket left out. There was no offer then, nor was any broached this past offseason, with the team preferring to go year to year.
Duke acknowledges that he would have welcomed an offer at any point, but he also does not appear to have taken management's stance personally.
"You know, looking back," he said in an interview Wednesday at AT&T Park, "it would have been hard if I were a front-office person watching my career track when they took over, it would have been hard to look at me and say, 'Hey, let's give this guy an extension.' That would have been very tough. I had an injury. I had down years. So, I don't feel slighted at all."
When the current management team took over in late 2007, Duke was coming off a lifetime low, a 3-8 season in which he had a 5.08 ERA and missed two months to elbow pain.
"As far as I know, I'm here for this year and next year," he continued regarding his status. "And I'm going to give this team everything I have."
Duke will turn 27 on Monday, but his rookie rise in 2005 probably seems like yesterday to those in the Pirates' fan base who recall his going 8-2 with a 1.81 ERA in 14 starts that drew national attention. The morning after he put down the Mets at Shea Stadium, one tabloid dubbed him "The Duke of New York."
But his ERAs the next three seasons swelled to 4.47, 5.53 and that 5.08. He lost zip on the fastball, lost almost all of his early swagger and, above all, he lost, lost, lost. He was 18-37 in those three years.
This was not the same confident-bordering-on-cocky kid who, while still in Class AA, faced slugger Bobby Abreu in a spring exhibition, gave up a home run in Abreu's first at-bat and struck him out twice after that, then openly declared afterward that he saw something in Abreu's swing on the home run that he would forever exploit.
Rather, this was someone trying to figure out where it all went, especially once the elbow pain came.
"My focus got taken off recognizing swings and hitters when I got hurt, and I was just trying to find my mechanics again," Duke said. "I was focusing much more on what I was doing than the hitters. And that's not my game."
His game returned last season, in large part because he started viewing all hitters the way he did Abreu years earlier, processing information not just when studying beforehand but also right there on the spot.
"The times I had success, what was going through my brain, all that was going through my brain, were the at-bats. It was the things I'd prepared for, the things I'd studied on video. But it really was just ultimate focus on each pitch and knowing exactly what I wanted to throw with the next pitch right away."
As in, before the catcher throws the ball back?
"Right away. It's like, OK, I saw this particular swing. Now, I need to do this. If it was a foul ball or swing and miss, I saw the path of the bat. If I threw a ball, I saw how he tracked my pitch. I knew exactly what I wanted to throw next."
He looks much the same in the very early going this season, working quickly, throwing strikes and relying on a hard, active sinker to get 21 ground-ball outs in his 12 innings.
"The sinker has been outstanding," Doumit said.
He was not the only catcher with that view Saturday in Phoenix: Joe Garagiola, the famed broadcaster now working for the Arizona Diamondbacks and a catcher himself about a half-century ago, said this of Duke between innings: "That kid, every time he gets himself into trouble, he just goes back to that sinker and gets the out. He should be winning a lot of games."
Wins and losses for pitchers, while linked to much romanticism in baseball predating even Garagiola's era, make for terribly poor statistical indicators of performance. Still, the first letter next to the pitcher's name in the box score is a W or L. And Duke, a fierce, intense competitor, has had visible difficulty containing his disappointment after some of the tough Ls attached to his name in recent years.
"Of course, I want to win more than I lose, obviously," he said. "It's a tough thing to learn not to let it get to you."
That probably will continue to be a challenge. The Pirates almost surely will not be as good defensively as last year when they ranked No. 1 in fielding percentage and fewest errors, and Duke's pitch-to-contact style requires a steady defense.
But there is little question that Duke's motivation will remain intact.
"This season means a lot to me. It really does," he said. "I know my career's at a point where I either start to prove that I am a good major-league pitcher or an average to below-average major-league pitcher. I want to go out and prove that I can be on a championship-caliber team, whether it's here or wherever I am. I want to be a guy who, when I take the mound, you know the team has a good chance to win."
Duke will take the mound tonight at PNC Park against Cincinnati and, if he has his way, he will be 3-0 and the Reds will be the losers.
Dejan Kovacevic: dkovacevic@post-gazette.com. Find more at PBC Blog.
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