On his way to recording 417 saves – the eighth-most in MLB history – with a chance this year to move to fourth on the list, new O’s closer Craig Kimbrel has featured a most unusual set-up out of the stretch position.
Bent over at the waist, his right arm dangles out to the right and there is a bit of a stare-down before each pitch. When Kimbrel talked to O’s reporters early last month, he discussed how he got to that pre-pitch routine, also hinting it could change at times next season.
“It’s pretty simple,” Kimbrel said on an O’s video call with media. “There was never really much behind it. I’ve always leaned over, but my arm for a long time was behind my back. In growing up and going from being a young kid playing the game to an older man playing the game, my arm just wasn’t going behind my back anymore. So, I started to let it hang and it kind of transformed into something that I would use to lock in. To say, ‘OK, It’s time to go.’ The fun, the happy, the joking, the loving Craig we get for most of the day, it’s time for him to get serious and to focus. It was a tool I was able to use over the years to really lock in pitch-to-pitch.
“You know I have a couple of ideas this year to try to work with that with the new rules of the game – the pitch clock and windup and things. The game is changing, so I need to change a little bit. Kind of excited this spring to try and make that work. The game is forever changing and if we don’t keep up with that, we’ll be left behind. It’s something I’ve done for a long, long time and something I will continue to do, but I think this year we might see something a little quicker and a little better.”
It will be interesting to see how that plays out. The biggest concern for the team will be, of course, not how he looks in throwing the ball but what happens after he lets it go.
