Like a modern-day artist doing a touch-up job on a classic Renaissance painting, Don Cooper has been asked to restore the luster of a once-dominant pitching staff.
This is no paint-by-numbers task for the new White Sox pitching coach. Though he has seen immediate results since taking over for Jackie Brown on June 2, Cooper knows that it’s a long-term renovation project that cannot be fairly judged in a two-week span.
The marked improvement of Jason Bere, for example, is a positive sign that will be registered as a meaningless blip if he begins walking batters again in his next start. For now, however, it appears as though Cooper has helped Bere turn things around.
“I’ve always been lucky myself, being in the right place at the right spot,” said Cooper, who was pitching coach at Triple-A Nashville before the recent promotion. “In this case, for Jason, he was due to come out of the little inconsistency he was in. It looks like, `Wow, we’ve really done something major here.’ But he’s done the work.”
The No. 1 task of the pitching staff is to cut down on the number of walks allowed. Sox pitchers gave up an average of 5.5 walks per nine innings in the first 31 games under manager Gene Lamont and Brown. In the first 10 games of the Terry Bevington/Don Cooper era, the staff allowed only 3.3 walks per nine innings. The staff ERA, which stood at 5.64 when Lamont and Brown were fired, was down to 5.22 before Wednesday’s game. In the first 10 games under Cooper, the ERA was 4.02, which is just a little higher than the 3.96 ERA of 1994 that made the Sox league-leaders for the second straight year.
Three of the five starters have seemingly gotten back on track. Alex Fernandez has a 3.18 ERA over his last three starts. Jim Abbott, the only consistent starter this season, has a 1.98 ERA over his last three starts. Bere has a 2.77 ERA over his last two starts, including a 1-0 loss to Oakland Monday in which he was brilliant, striking out red-hot slugger Mark McGwire on three straight fastballs and challenging hitters instead of always trying to hit the corners.
“This has got to be great for his confidence,” Cooper said. “And now we’ve got to back this one up with another good one. To me, also, he had a very mediocre outing his last outing, and the mark of a good pitcher is to bounce back after a poor outing. The mark of a real good pitcher is not to let too many of those poor outings slip in there.”
Bere said he was having a few mechanical problems. “But mostly it’s mentally throwing the ball,” he said. “Not staring it in there, not trying to aim. We’ve worked on it the past week, the minor flaws. I just got back to throwing the ball.”
Rookie Brian Keyser, who has a 5.91 ERA in his only two starts, is expected to struggle a bit until he grows more comfortable in his surroundings. That leaves Wilson Alvarez, who started Wednesday night’s game in the Coliseum as the one man in the rotation who remains a pitching coach’s puzzle.
Alvarez came into the game with a 6.02 ERA and 1-3 record after going 27-16 over the last two seasons with ERAs of 2.95 in ’93 and 3.45 in ’94. He lasted only five innings Wednesday, walking seven and throwing a wild pitch and allowing two earned runs.
“His stuff is there,” Cooper said. “I’d rather have that problem–where a guy has got good stuff and might be a bit inconsistent–because I believe we can work with that. I’ve seen improvement, although it hasn’t shown up in his line score. . . . It’s there, and just like Jason, it’s just a matter of putting it together. I think we’re about to see that.”
Alvarez says the problems are all in his head, and that the shoulder problems from last winter have gone away. Cooper saw that Alvarez was releasing the ball from a slight angle rather than coming over the top, and has altered his delivery to try and bring back the old Alvarez.
“In the beginning, he hadn’t been feeling up to snuff,” Cooper said. “That gets in a guy’s head and he doesn’t feel right. I think that restricted him from doing things that Wilson Alvarez does to be successful. Now he’s feeling much, much better.
“As for the angle of his pitches, you say to him: `Get over the top, finish your pitches.’ To me, he’s got to angle the ball down, drive the ball down in the zone. So many of his pitches were staying up. Now I’m seeing many more down in the zone. His breaking ball is good. His changeup is good. The ingredients are there. It’s just a matter of finding the right mix and stirring it up right and good things will happen.”
