He’s a master at fixing whatever ails him on the mound, a wizard at working through early problems and turning a rotten egg of a performance into something palatable.
But even Jamie Moyer knows there are times – like Thursday’s 4 1/3innings of hard labor against the Oakland A’s – when nothing he tries will work.
He chalks that one up to the “20-percent” formula he learned years ago.
A former coach with the Cubs told Moyer that in 20 percent of the games a pitcher works, he will have such great stuff that he can’t lose. But there will be another 20 percent when he’s so bad that it would take a miracle to win.
Then there’s the remaining 60 percent, the majority of a pitcher’s starts, when he’s neither perfect nor lousy. He might be sharp enough to pitch a strong game, but it will take his knowledge of himself, the hitters and even the plate umpire to turn a good performance into a great one.
Those are the outings that define how good a pitcher really is, how well he can adjust.
Few are better at it than Moyer.
He often says success is a matter of making good pitches.
That’s true, but it also requires a pitcher who routinely alters his tendencies to account for changes in the approach of the hitters, the strike zone of a particular umpire and his own physical strengths – or shortcomings – on a particular day.
“It’s important to have the ability to adjust, but it’s just as important to have an awareness of how and when to be able to adjust and what you can adjust to,” Moyer said. “It can change outing to outing, inning to inning and pitch to pitch sometimes. It depends on where you are as a pitcher on that given day.”
Some days, Moyer might feel sluggish. Others, he’ll be edgy with adrenaline. And there are others when he doesn’t have a good feel for the baseball, the mound or his mechanics. The key to overcoming those factors, Moyer says, is to recognize them and find a way around them.
“It still comes back to being able to make pitches and having the confidence to make pitches,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any one way or reason to do something. It’s what feels good to you or what feels right to you at the particular time.”
Last Saturday against the Texas Rangers, Moyer seemed lost in the first inning. Pitching to what seemed a narrow strike zone called by plate umpire Mark Carlson, Moyer struggled to throw first-pitch strikes and he allowed a leadoff double to Michael Young, then two warning-track fly balls.
He allowed a run in that inning, had a brief talk with Carlson afterward to learn more about the umpire’s strike zone that night, then went on to pitch his best game of the season. Moyer gave up eight hits and a run in eight innings of a 4-1 Mariners victory.
The first inning typically serves as the foundation for Moyer’s approach the rest of the game.
“You’ve got to find what’s working, what’s being called and what’s not being called, what the opponent is doing,” he said. “Are they going to give up the inner half of the plate? Are they not going to swing at anything away until you prove that you can throw strikes out there? You’ve still got to make your pitches, and it’s a matter of when you use them and how you use them.”
It’s also important to know where to throw them. Some umpires will call a wide strike zone, some narrow, and a pitcher never really knows what that zone is until he works an inning. Moyer won’t hesitate to talk with an umpire between innings if he doesn’t understand ball-strike calls.
“What you want to see from an umpire is consistency,” Moyer said. “A lot of times I’m trying to get a grasp of what they’re seeing. I feel like I know what I’m seeing, but maybe what they’re seeing isn’t the same thing. They’re seeing it from a completely different angle and there are factors involved, a catcher catching the ball and a hitters swinging at the ball.”
When his pitching mechanics need tweaking in the middle of a game, Moyer said that can be one of the most difficult adjustments to make. He has fixed his mechanics on the mound during warmup pitches, and he has worked on them between innings in front of a mirror in the clubhouse.
“It depends on where you are mentally. Sometimes I feel like it’s real easy to make adjustments and sometimes I feel like I’m beating my head against a wall,” he said. “As a younger player, I used to really fight myself. Now I’m to the point where I don’t fight myself. But I still go out and compete.”
There’s nothing like the euphoria of throwing every pitch exactly where he wanted it, and having hitters approach him just as the scouting report said.
“It doesn’t happen a whole lot. But I had some games during my career when teams just didn’t seem to adjust,” he said.
And there are games when it seems like the team he faced last week isn’t the same bunch of hitters this time around.
“When that happens, it’s a battle just to get to the fifth inning,” Moyer said. “During that battle to get there, you’re hoping maybe something does click. If that happens, then you start thinking you can get to the sixth. You may be able to fight your way through a game or two like that. I think that’s healthy. Hopefully you’ll come out of it unscathed, and after the fact I think it’s a great way to learn.”
And when absolutely nothing works, like Thursday? Well, there’s that 20-percent formula Moyer has always remembered.
“Sometimes you have to be able to say, ‘I don’t have it today,’ “he said. “To me, that’s the challenge of it. You’re not going to be at your best every time out.
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