Karstens integral part of Pirates’ resurgence
PITTSBURGH (AP) ā Jeff Karstens heard the chatter. Hang around the fringe as long as the Pirates right-hander has and itās hard to ignore.
Manager Clint Hurdle heard it too. He saw the reports labeling Karstens a āfive and 75 guy,ā meaning once he got through five innings or 75 pitches, things started to get ugly.
Did it bother Karstens? Sure. But considering his lackluster numbers during his first five seasons with the New York Yankees and the Pirates ā a 12-27 record with a 5.07 ERA ā he couldnāt exactly blame scouts for placing him with the not-so flattering tag.
āThey had the stats to back it up,ā Karstens said with a shrug of considerably slight shoulders.
Not anymore.
The 28-year-old Karstens is arguably the biggest surprise on one of baseballās biggest surprises. Thrust into the rotation when Ross Ohlendorf went down with a shoulder injury in April, Karstens is having the kind of breakthrough year he wondered would ever come.
Scan the list of lowest ERAs in the National League and thereās the usual suspects like Philadelphiaās Roy Halladay and San Franciscoās Tim Lincecum. And then thereās Karstens, shipped from the Yankees to the Pirates three summers ago as a throw-in on a trade that sent Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte to New York and heralded prospects Jose Tabata and Daniel McCutchen to Pittsburgh.
Karstens was an afterthought then. He looks like a steal now.
The guy, who never met a corner of the plate he didnāt like to nibble on, is 8-5 with a 2.28 ERA ā second best in the league among eligible pitchers ā while becoming Pittsburghās most consistent starter.
Howād it happen? Karstens isnāt quite sure. Hurdle thinks Karstens simply got tired of reading the scouting report on himself and decided he was at the point in his career where opportunities to change peopleās perception were starting to run out.
āSometimes what bothers people is when (the perceptions) are accurate and you canāt get out of it,ā Hurdle said. āOh, heās a 5 and 75 guy, you keep going 5 and 75 and the barrel starts showing up (and) the noise and the madness. You either do something about it or thatās who you are.ā
In four months, Karstens has morphed from long-reliever to workhorse. Heās pitched into the seventh inning in each of his last nine starts, including a typically efficient seven-inning outing in a 3-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday.
Karstens needed just 77 pitches to get through one of baseballās most productive lineups. He didnāt overpower the Reds ā he doesnāt overpower anybody, really, with his middling 88-91 mph fastball ā but now he knows he doesnāt have to.
He knows heās got eight teammates around him who can catch the ball easier than he can throw it past a hitter. Heās more than happy to let them do their job.
āGet them involved,ā said Karstens, who hasnāt struck out more than five hitters in a game all year. āThe more theyāre involved, the better theyāre going to be at the plate and in the dugout.ā
Pitching coach Ray Searage says Karstens has developed into āa pitcherās pitcher,ā relying more on control and confidence than electric stuff.
āHeās playing a chess game with the hitter and the hitter is going to try and figure out his chess game, his strategy,ā Searage said. āHeās going to go out there and try and have the hitter hit his pitch and get himself out.ā
Even if Searage chides the reserved, laid-back San Diego native for being too ārocket scientistyā at times.
āHeāll overabuse a certain pitch because he can throw them from a couple different arm slots and heāll go a little bit too crazy on it,ā Searage said. āI tell him to use it when you want, but donāt abuse it. He picks it up and goes āyeah, youāre rightā and he kicks himself in the butt saying āI should have known better.'ā
Karstens is no longer prone to repeating the same mistakes, and is going deeper in games because of it. He has thrown at least 77 pitches in each start over the last two months, and has become effective deeper in games because heās taken his ego out of the equation.
āIām maybe not as ādumbā when Iām pitching,ā he said. āIām not trying to throw a fastball by a guy.ā
Something he tried to do too often earlier in his career. Coming up, Karstens figured the point was to get the batter to swing and miss. It led him to be too tentative. Heās gotten knocked around enough to know heās going to get hit. His job now is to try and make sure the ball gets hit at somebody.
For the most part, itās worked. Though he was undone Wednesday by a pair of unearned runs on errors by shortstop Chase dāArnaud, Karstens was also bailed out three times by spectacular plays in the field.
āHe has our trust,ā centerfielder Andrew McCutchen said, āand we trust him as well.ā
Karstens is doing his best not to get ahead of himself. But itās getting tougher, isnāt it?
After all, the Pirates are in the middle of their best season in nearly 20 years. And he appears to finally have grown comfortable in his own skin.
For a guy who wasnāt quite sure of his role four months ago, heās been a key cog to one of baseballās best stories.
āYouāve got to love watching him go out there and pitch,ā closer Joel Hanrahan said. āWhen he was in the bullpen, we always saw him as a starter in our eyes.
āAnd man, heās doing it.ā