Cloude is M’s odd-man out

  • Larry Henry / Sports Columnist
  • Monday, May 13, 2002 9:00pm
  • Sports

TACOMA – Rain gently fell as two men played catch in right field at Cheney Stadium Monday afternoon.

One of these men would play catch in a downpour if he had to. His dream since he was 6 years old was to play major league baseball. He has done that. Now he is trying to do it again.

It was one day after that man – Ken Cloude – had won his sixth game of the Pacific Coast League season for the Tacoma Rainers, a neat piece of work consisting of eight innings of two-hit ball in a 4-1 decision over Portland.

Now he was getting in some obligatory day-after soft-toss.

You can’t fathom what it means for Ken Cloude to be able to do something as simple as play catch. To stand on the wet outfield grass on a drizzly afternoon in mid-May and lob the ball back and forth is one of the most precious pleasures a man like Cloude can have.

But to be able to put some mustard on his throws, to let go with a 92-mph fastball with a man standing at home plate, now that’s living. Ken Cloude can do that, too, as his 6-1 record and league-leading 1.24 earned run average indicate.

But for the last 1 1/2seasons, Cloude couldn’t play baseball due to injuries. In June of 2000, he tore a ligament in his right elbow and underwent Tommy John surgery that August. While rehabbing from that, he ruptured the achilles tendon in his left leg taking part in agility drills in January of 2001 and sat out the entire season.

“The achilles thing was like the end of the world for me,” the 27-year-old Cloude said in the hallway outside the Rainiers clubhouse Monday afternoon. “You spend five months busting your butt from the Tommy John surgery … and that (leg injury) kind of shuts down your whole Tommy John rehab and you’ve got to worry about getting back on your own two feet before you can really start throwing again.”

Rainiers pitching coach Jim Slaton saw the leg injury as a blessing in disguise. “You can pitch after one year,” said Slaton, who had a fine big-league career himself, “but it usually takes a couple of years.”

Cloude grudgingly acknowledged that Slaton could be right about the “blessing in disguise” business because “I like to test things a little more than maybe I should. People felt I might have rushed coming back.”

That he could take his time undoubtedly helped him, not only from a healing process, but from a maturing process.

In his previous life, the first seven years he spent in the Mariners organization, Cloude was a hard-throwing right-hander with perhaps not a whole lot of know-how about the finer points of pitching. “I was a guy who grinded it out,” said the native of Baltimore. “Throw hard, then when you get in trouble, try to strike everybody out.”

It got him to the major leagues in ‘97 – at the age of 22 – and in his big-league debut, he pitched six innings of no-hit ball against the Chicago White Sox. In parts of three seasons with the M’s, he went 16-16, with eight of those wins coming in ‘98 when he was with the big club most of the year.

He began the 2000 season with the Rainiers when the first injury struck. When he finally made it back this year, he was smarter, he was craftier. He was a pitcher.

“He’s come back and done everything you can ask of him,” Slaton said. “He’s worked hard, building up his pitch count, and he’s been solid every time out. It’s good to see good people like him benefit.”

Where he once threw 94-to-95 mph, Cloude’s fastball tops out at 92 today. “He threw a little harder back then,” Slaton said, “but he wasn’t the pitcher he is now.

“He’s learned how to work both sides of the plate with his fastball, he’s come up with a real good changeup and his slider’s just getting better. He’s learned how to become a pitcher.”

Cloude says part of the learning process was watching games while he was injured and trying to put himself in game situations. “You try to use your time wisely,” he said.

In throwing strikes, he has become much more efficient than the Ken Cloude of old, who walked far too many batters. In 51 innings so far, he has issued only 13 walks.

“I change speeds more than I ever have, I use all the corners of the strike zone, up and down, and I don’t really remember doing that,” he said. “The biggest thing is I try to make ‘em put the ball in play. I’m not really a big strikeout pitcher and I don’t really have the great breaking pitch that I used to have.”

In his Sunday outing against Portland, he needed only 92 pitches to get through eight innings. That contrasted sharply with the 95 he used in six innings during his previous start. He admitted to having “lost my cool” in that game after walking a couple of batters.

The changeup has been a huge addition to his repertoire. Having seen what it did for an ageless Mariner pitcher, Cloude thought it wise to invest some time and work into it. “You see what Jamie Moyer does – throws in the low 80s, changeup after changeup, but he still manages to sometimes make that 83-84 mph fastball look like it’s going 95 and he throws it past guys sometimes,” Cloude said. “When you’re able to throw something slow, no matter what your fastball is, there’s going to be that gap in there that makes it look that much faster. That’s been a big plus for me.”

Cloude says he never gave any thought to retiring when he got injured the second time. No, his mind was on one thing – rehabbing and making it back. Not to just baseball, but to the major leagues.

“I’ve been at the top and I’ve hit rock bottom,” he said. “My whole mindset from here on out is I have nothing to lose. There’s no panic when I’m on the mound anymore. There’s no urgency when guys get on base. I’m not out there thinking, ‘Oh, god, if I don’t make this pitch, I’m gonna get sent down or I’m gonna be taken off the 40-man roster.’ I’m not on the 40-man roster anymore, I’m battling to get back.”

With all he’s done just to get back on the mound, with the early success he’s had this season, with the fact that he’s already pitched in the major leagues, you might be curious about his reaction when the M’s recently called up three pitchers from the minors – none with big-league experience.

“A part of me was upset, I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “But that was a small part of me.”

An observant pitching coach gets to know his players well, can read their moods and body languages. Jim Slaton determined what was eating Ken Cloude.

“I didn’t say anything to anybody until the last guy (Rafael Soriano) was called up from double A,” Cloude said. “Slaton could see something was on my mind. He cleared my head.”

Slaton explained to him that it was more important to pitch every five days as a starter and to keep getting stronger. “He’s exactly right,” Cloude conceded. “Instead of going up there in the bullpen and maybe pitching once a week.”

It’s called maturing. Ken Cloude is doing that, as a person and as a pitcher.

He has had two memorable highlights in the big leagues – his debut against the White Sox. And his first victory, against the team he grew up hoping to play for, his hometown Orioles. Yes, he had a little chip on his shoulder the day he stepped on the mound to face the Birds. “It was like, ‘Why didn’t you guys draft me?’ ” he said with a smile.

There is one more moment he lives for. That’s the day he can step between the white lines in a big-league ballpark again, for the M’s or for whomever.

“When I finally do get back,” he said, “it’s gonna be a pretty emotional day.’ “

Notice he didn’t say, “If I get back,” but “when I get back.”

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