| | No matter how many home runs get hit, the pitcher is still the offense in baseball. When I have the ball in my hand, it is my game, and what I do with that ball forces the hitter to react to me. He has to defend against my moves. That's the way I look at it.
|  | | Pedro Martinez has had tremendous success facing Ken Griffey Jr. in his career. |
I have to plant things in power hitters' heads. Sometimes I have to make them believe that I can throw my fastball in on their hands. Sometimes I have to make them aware of my curveball or my cutter. It's not something I plan. It's what I see, what my catchers, Jason Varitek and Scott Hatteberg, see, or maybe something my brother Ramon sees from the dugout.
I like to study pitchers who have the great mechanics. My teammate Bret Saberhagen is the best. I used to love to watch Bob Tewksbury. He wasn't a power pitcher, but he had perfect mechanics, and he knew how to pitch to good hitters. A pitcher like Tewks frustrates hitters by understanding what they like to do, finding out how they give themselves away, then taking advantage of that. Hitters like Ken Griffey and Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds are so strong and so dangerous, you have to study everything.
I was fortunate enough to establish myself with Junior in his first at-bat the first time we faced each other last season. The first pitch, I went hard-in because I wanted to establish I could get in there. Hard-in a couple of times. Then soft-away, to mess up his timing. Then hard-in again. Finally, after going hard-in, soft-away, hard-in and hard-away, I thought I finally had him thinking in-out-hard-soft, and I threw him a 3-2 curveball. He struck out swinging.
Griffey is so great, you have to establish a lot of different things in his mind, then work off them. From that point on, I was careful not to come inside too often because I knew he might just turn on it, so I worked a lot of changeups and curves in the at-bats that followed.
Let's just say I pitched according to what I saw. If he has a lot of at-bats without a hit against me (He's 0-for-12 with 5 Ks), then I have been fortunate. I don't boast; this game comes back to bite you in a hurry, and the next time I face Griffey, maybe in the World Series, I will have to start a whole new battle.
Sammy in 1995 was so anxious that he would swing at a curveball out of the zone, then in his next at-bat, at a fastball out of the zone. Remember, with great power hitters, you have to throw a lot of pitches out of the strike zone. If you throw too many strikes, they're going to hit them. Simple as that. People often talk about "command" and think it's all about strikes. It's not. You have to have the command to throw strikes and balls, because if you're going to get a strikeout or a weak ground ball or pop-up against a big hitter, you often have to get them with balls. How you get them to swing at balls is a very big part of the game.
That might be why Barry Bonds is so tough. He's so smart. He doesn't forget anything. I've gone through a lot of learning experiences with Barry. (He's 11-for-30 lifetime vs. Pedro.)
I thought I could change speeds on him early or go hard-away, and he was thinking right along with me. If we meet again, I'll have to have a new approach based on what I see. Pitching to Barry is a lot like pitching to the entire Yankee lineup. They don't swing at many balls out of the strike zone, and they're very good at hitting in counts and situations.
When I one-hit them last September, it was just one of those nights where I had command of all my pitches. (He walked none and struck out 17, including 15 of the last 22 batters.) I felt good, I felt the energy of the crowd at Yankee Stadium. It was a rare game where I could go at the hitters with whatever I needed to throw.
The situation was a lot different against New York in the ALCS. I was hurting a lot more than I had let on. I was actually a little worried. The trainer worked on me between innings, and the massages deep into my bones were killing me. Sometimes on the mound, I almost thought I would scream out. In the first inning, I realized I didn't have a fastball and my changeup didn't feel right coming out of my hand. I was fortunate to get through the first. That gave me the opportunity to feel my way through the game.
A game like that proves there is no right way to pitch anyone. It's all in what I have, what I see and what I feel. I just have to remind myself over and over, I am the offense in this game.
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