This entry was posted on 8/20/2008 4:12 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
Last summer was a necessary, but miserable nonetheless, summer for Red Sox prospect Daniel Bard.
The 23-year-old pitching prospect and former first round pick of the Sox (28th overall in the 2006 draft) languished as a starting pitcher at the Single-A level for the balance of his entire first professional season. Bard had little control over his high-90’s fastball or his curveball and changeup, and he struggled on the pitcher’s mound for the first time in his career.
Struggling was something he wasn’t accustomed to, and something he isn’t too anxious to see a recurrence of anytime soon.
“A lot of guys might have gone out there and wanted to kill themselves,” said Bard with a laugh about the seemingly distant struggles of last season. “It was as frustrating as baseball has ever been for me, but I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. There were glimpses of success that I was still feeling and really my strong faith in God helped me keep everything in perspective when times weren’t going so well.”
It was a trying time for the grandson of longtime Reading resident Fran O’Brien and the son of Reading High graduate Kathy (O’Brien) Bard, and he’s not afraid to admit it. His confidence was at an all-time low, but it also sparked a determination that’s impressed Sox officials this season.
“It’s always just a matter of going out and trusting your stuff and making sure your stuff plays at a new level of baseball,” said Bard. “My goal this year was to go out and show everyone that Low-A was too easy for me after what happened last year.
“The bullpen is a different mentality, and you just get really aggressive and give it all you’ve got for an inning or two while you’re out there,” added Bard. “After last year I had about the worst year I could possibly have, and I told myself this year that I was going to be aggressive. If I was going to go down, it was going to be while I was being aggressive and giving it my all. I was going to do it my way.”
But an amazing thing happened to the youngster after his confidence was walloped by an entire year of futility. Bard was sent to the Hawaiian Winter League and spent the winter of 2007-2008 pitching for Honolulu under the watchful eye of Double-A Portland Sea Dogs coach Mike Cather. Along with an introduction to surfing, Bullpen 101 was on the winter syllabus.
The Sox put together a plan to slot the hard-throwing Bard into the bullpen, and things clicked almost immediately for the former UNC Tar Heel. He regained adequate command of his pitches and the electric stuff returned in full order for the talented righty. Bard was able to overpower hitters with fastball velocity that reaches up toward the 100-mph level, and all of his secondary offerings grew sharper with the regular usage that’s synonymous with bullpen usage.
The walks disappeared, the ERA dropped and Bard’s confidence was again on the rise.
This time Bard rocketed through Single-A Greenville with something to prove, and he did just that by striking out 43 batters in 28 innings pitched to go along with a meager 0.64 ERA.
“It would be hard to ignore the strides that Daniel has made over the last season, and we would never want to,” said Sox Director of Player Development Mike Hazen. “There aren’t a lot of arms out there that can potentially throw 100-mph and also bring a hammer curveball to the table.
“The stuff still isn’t pin-point command-wise, but there’s always going to be a little bit more margin for error for a kid like because his stuff is so good,” added Hazen, who felt like the young hurler wasn’t that far from advancing to the Triple-A level.
More than anything else, though, the utter control of his pitches was eye-popping. Bard walked only four batters in his 28 innings of work, and that mastery of the strike zone prompted a jump all the way up to Double-A Portland. The Maine experience has been a good one for Bard as local family and friends have been able to watch the hurler do his thing in the Eastern League this summer, and his grand-father has made stops in both Portland and Manchester, N.H. to check in on his grandson.
Bard is now gathering steam as a viable big league option while continuing to gain confidence and command at the Double-A level – always the minor league testing ground where players truly begin to separate themselves as big league worthy – and has a 2.18 ERA in 45 1/3 innings for the Sea Dogs this season.
“I think of myself as a reliever now,” said Bard. “If the plan for me was to start I would think I’d have been working on that in A-ball. I feel like I’ve got two pretty dominant pitches and I think that plays well out of the bullpen.
“I really like throwing out of the eighth or ninth inning,” added Bard. “Whether it’s setting up for the Red Sox or closing out games for them, that’s what I see myself doing down the road.”
The walks are up against much-better offensive competition, but the 6-foot-4, 195-pounder has also fanned 58 batters and collected four saves while gaining the attention of other teams around Major League Baseball. The Atlanta Braves put in a call to the Sox trying to pry Bard away from them in exchange for left-handed setup man Will Ohman during the trade deadline last month, but the Sox front office people finally hung up the phone after getting a good laugh out of the deal.
That’s how much the Sox value the stand-out arm of Bard’s during this age of lowered radar gun readings and mediocre pitching throughout baseball.
“It was a big graduation for him going from Low-A right to Double-A and I think the big thing is that he’s right around the strike zone,” said Cather. “He has electric stuff. He’s making a lot of adjustments with his change up and breaking ball because you don’t have a lot of need for secondary stuff at the college level when you throw 90-100-mph.
“He’s done a good job getting strikeouts with his breaking ball,” added the Portland pitching coach. “My own personal experience going from starting to the bullpen, it’s a much simpler game and the weight of thinking about going two or three innings is easier to digest. There’s nothing to say he won’t become a starter again someday, but the experience he’s getting out of the pen coming into tight ballgames is worth its weight in gold.”
Given the way the kid with so many Reading connections is rocketing through the Sox minor league system and the golden arm that he’s blessed with, it might not be too long before the O’Brien clan is trekking to Fenway watching one of their own starring for the Olde Towne Team.
