SARASOTA, Fla. — Mat Latos has been trying his best to keep things cool and calm this spring as he fights for a job with the Toronto Blue Jays. Focus on your mechanics; stay within yourself; keep things simple. These are overused clichés but they’re helpful reminders for players like Latos who can bring an intense ferocity to a mild-mannered game. The last thing you want is for a pitcher like that to get frustrated or emotional on the mound and end up hurting himself.
And yet, there was Latos on Wednesday, pitching against the Baltimore Orioles in Sarasota and absolutely fuming over a strike zone that wasn’t being called in his favour. He threw fastballs to both sides of the plate; he tried to attack the corners; he pitched up and down in the zone. And none of it was working. He couldn’t get a call. So, with his patience running on empty, Latos decided that if the umpire wanted to see a strike he’d show him a strike.
An instant later, Latos was stabbing at a new ball thrown to him by his catcher before the last one had even landed well beyond the outfield wall. It was the worst pitch he threw all day and he knew it. But his frustrations got the better of him.
“I’m just trying to go out there and get outs,” Latos said of his approach. “But today, I was trying to get strikes.”
Making his third appearance this spring after signing a minor league deal just as camp opened, Latos’ irritation with the strike zone began when he walked Chris Davis in the first inning with a full-count fastball. Latos thought the plate appearance should have been over much earlier than that with a pair of pitches that weren’t called his way.
And he thought the next batter, Mark Trumbo, had hit into an inning-ending double play, but watched as the hard grounder snuck just beyond the reach of shortstop Richard Urena and plated a run. A sacrifice fly brought in another before Latos got out of the inning with a deep fly ball to centre that fell just in front of the wall.
Latos began the second with a deep fly out before walking a batter on four pitches and later walking another with two out. That’s when he’d had enough. Furious with the strike zone, Latos grooved a 92-mph fastball over the plate to Craig Gentry who didn’t miss it, hitting a long, three-run homer to left-centre that Latos knew was gone as soon as it left the bat. After retiring Davis to end the inning, Latos gave home plate umpire Junior Valentine an earful as he walked back to the dugout.
“I don’t think the umpire was giving him anything,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons. “He got frustrated with the ump, and then he started scattering a little bit more. With his style of throwing, he’s going to get a wide variance. The big, breaking curveball; a lot of balls up in the zone; spiking some of them. He’s not necessarily an easy guy to call back there. But I thought he really squeezed him. What are you going to do?”
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After the game, Latos said the plan that he and catcher Juan Graterol brought into Wednesday’s game was to work both down-and-away and up-and-in.
“Well, we weren’t getting down-and-away and we weren’t getting up-and-in,” Latos said. “We weren’t getting either one. So, it was kind of a ‘where do I go from here?’ kind of thing.
“I felt like I made a lot of good pitches. My catcher did, too. You’re looking at it and thinking you’re making pitches. And then you feel like, okay, you’ve got to shrink your zone a little bit. And then you wind up leaving one down the middle and it’s a three-run home run.”
Stuff-wise, Latos looked like himself. His fastball sat from 90-92-mph on the day with a few 93’s mixed in. The 29-year-old says he hasn’t been throwing the pitch as hard as he can this spring, focusing instead on maintaining his mechanics and not overthrowing. He had more success with his secondary offerings on Wednesday, throwing some good sliders that led to groundballs while mixing in a pair of curveballs.
But it was his fastball command—while Latos walked three in his two innings of work, the other 12 pitchers to appear in the game combined for just one—and his emotions that burned him, especially in the second inning when he went one stretch throwing six balls in a row.
“And then just a mistake over the middle of the plate,” Latos said. “You’re like, ‘well, okay, that’s not working. Obviously, I can’t get down-and-away called.’ So, you kind of shrink your zone.
“But no matter what’s being called, I shouldn’t give in and lay one down the middle and give up a three-run home run.”
You definitely should not. Especially when, like Latos, you have a 4.93 ERA since the beginning of 2015 and you’re trying to catch on with a new team—your sixth in two years. Watching Latos work, you can see why he keeps getting opportunities. He pitches with big-time movement and he’s an intimidating presence on the mound. And he’d looked promising to this point in camp.
“He’s throwing the ball really well,” Gibbons said before the game. “Good breaking ball. He’s a big guy, so the ball’s coming downhill at you. He still has a good arm. I’ve been impressed, I really have.”
Latos has been happy with his performances, too. Wednesday’s results aside, he says his arm feels good and he’s happy with how the ball’s coming out of his hand. His breaking pitches still get big action, and Latos said he’ll try to mix in his curveball more as camp wears on. He was happy with the spin he was able to get on the two that he threw Wednesday. But that’s about all he had to be happy about after two innings that didn’t go his way.
“He’s still tightening some things up a little bit,” Gibbons said. “But, you know, he has to wash that one away.”
