Rubber-armed Suero is continuing to learn and progress

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - If spring training is a time to try new things, Wander Suero is a perfect candidate to learn.

After two seasons in the Nationals bullpen, the lanky right-hander continues to tantalize with his willingness to take the ball whenever asked and a cutter that can be an effective out pitch.

So what does manager Davey Martinez want to see out of the 28-year-old coming off a season in which he pitched in 78 games, went 6-9 with a 4.54 ERA and struck out 81 batters in 71 1/3 innings?

"For him, he's still learning how to control his cutter," Martinez said. "He just throws it. We teach him now, we've talked about where he wants to throw it, (how to) try to locate his cutter. A lot of times, he gets into trouble because it is a really good pitch, but when you get to two strikes, what do you want to do? How do you want to approach the hitter? He just looks at it and says, 'I just throw it and the ball cuts.' Well, there's more to it than that.

"We got to get you honed in. A lot of times he gets into trouble 1-2, 0-2, and then he throws something (over the plate instead of wasting a pitch). ... In those situations, for me, no one with your stuff should really hit the ball hard. You should get a little less contact, so he's working on righties on throwing more cutters at the hitters. He tries to throw everything for a strike, doesn't understand how to throw both sides of the plate, how to elevate, up and down."

Suero has been a work in progress for several springs now, as likely to harness mid-90s heat to strike out the side as he is to have trouble finding the plate. His struggles can be maddening and Martinez usually knows in the first couple of pitches of an appearance which version of Suero has trotted in from the bullpen.

When he's on, Suero can be electric. When he's not, the results can be pretty difficult to watch.

But if it's a pupil Martinez wants, Suero is willing to work hard in class.

"I never have met my ... full potential in terms on knowledge in terms of learning the game in general," he said through interpreter Octavio Martinez. "I feel like you can always learn, you can always pick up things from veterans."

First, there's the cutter - and how much Suero employs it. Davey Martinez remembers a relief outing against the Phillies when the righty faced the middle of the order. All Suero did was mow down major league hitters with 96 mph pitches. Martinez remembers the reliever bouncing off the mound with a bit of swagger and then catching the skipper's eye when he got back to the dugout.

"(He said, ) 'I got you. ... You told me to let it go, I let it go.' " Martinez said. "Let it go every day. Some days, he'll try to throw it as hard as he can ... One day, his cutter is more of a slider, one day his cutter is like really late (movement). Trying to get him to understand where he needs to be, how he needs to throw it."

More than anything, Martinez believes Suero needs to learn not to always use the whole plate. With a cutter he can't always control as much as he'd like to, Suero is prone to having the pitch leak over the heart of the plate when it doesn't dart away. Against major league hitters, that's just inviting trouble.

"He's got to learn that when you have two strikes, you can throw the ball here and here," he said, referencing a pitcher's ability to waste a pitch off the plate to entice a hitter's swing. "At some point, you look at a guy like him and tell him to just get outs."

There's a lot to like about Suero's body of work, even if it has been in a small sample size. He misses bats and gets strikeouts, averaging 9.7 for nine innings. He doesn't walk a ton of hitters, just 3.1 per nine innings. And he keeps the ball in the ballpark, allowing 0.7 home runs per nine innings over 118 career appearances covering 119 innings.

"As a reliever, my job is to be aggressive and throw strikes," Suero said. "I feel like I come in and pound the zone right away. Unlike a lot of relievers, I have a natural cutter. I think that has helped me limit the home runs because it's a lot easier to hit a fastball straight than it is to hit a ball that's moving a little bit."

Late last season, Suero broke out a changeup that Martinez would like to see him use more. The manager thinks the changeup could be the kind of pitch that makes his cutter even more dangerous, and vice-versa.

"He actually developed a changeup toward the end of last year and it's going to be really, really effective," Martinez said. "It's really good."

Suero is amenable to anything Martinez and pitching coach Paul Menhart want him to do. After all, with only two campaigns under his belt, the right-hander still wants to soak in whatever knowledge he can from whoever is sharing it.

And he'll still take the ball in any situation. While much of relief pitching has become specialized - a parade of one-inning guys marching from the bullpen - Suero readily accepts the challenge anytime the phone rings and bullpen coach Henry Blanco instructs him to get loose.

"As a young player trying to make it in the big leagues, you've got to take on the role they want you to take on and pitch whenever you're asked to take the ball," said Suero, who has thrown two scoreless Grapefruit League innings, walking one and striking out one. "So I feel like that's definitely what I have to do and I've always prepared myself to pitch every day, physically and mentally. I've taken pride in the way I've prepared and what I've done in my career, so I feel like if that's what I'm asked to do, that's what I want to do."