AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2007 > February > 16
Friday, February 16, 2007
Davies wants to stop the rollercoaster
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kyle Davies is saying the right things and insists he’s physically sound and ready to get his career headed in the proper direction.
But the Braves’ former top-prospect pitcher from Stockbridge knows that the mental side of his game might benefit from the Chuck James ignorance-is-bliss school of thinking _ or non-thinking, as it were.
James is the undersized, country-boy lefty who surpassed expectations at every level to become the ascendant young pitcher Davies was supposed to be at this point.
James, 25, has a bald head, a devilish smiled, a fastball that rarely tops 90 mph, and doesn’t do much studying of hitters or read up about what other teams are doing in the offseason _ or his team, for that matter.
The kid from Mableton swears he didn’t know anything about the relievers _ Rafael Soriano and lefty Mike Gonzalez _ the Braves traded for this winter until friends told him how big the moves were for the Braves.
James couldn’t be bothered by hot-stove talk, since he was waking up before the crack of dawn for his job installing windows and doors for a Lowe’s subcontractor. Yes, dude who won 11 of his 18 starts as a rookie saw no reason to give up his offseason manual-labor job.
You couldn’t sell a movie script with the James character if he weren’t real, because he’d seem too implausible, the accent too thick, the demeanor too care-free, to be believed by most audiences today.
But he’s the real deal, James is. Penciled in for the No. 4 spot in the rotation after pitching better than any Braves starter except John Smoltz last summer, when James went 11-4 with a 3.93 ERA after moving to the rotation.
James freely admits he doesn’t know much about the hitters he’s facing, didn’t collect their bubblegum cards as a kid, played baseball but didn’t follow it on TV or the internet. Perhaps as a result, he’s seemingly never intimidated, and doesn’t overanalyze why he succeeded or failed or what he might have done differently.
“That’s where I’m trying to get to, just pitch how you can pitch,“ Davies said. “Stop trying to prove yourself and just go out and pitch.”
Davies said a lot this morning, before the first pitchers-and-catchers workout. Talked about how the torn groin that put him on the DL three months last year is completely healed, talked about how good his arm feels, how his major league career so far has been, “up and down, up and down, a rollercoaster,” and how he wants to erase last season and show he’s ready to help his hometown team.
He doesn’t want to worry about competition for the fifth-starter job, about the thought of possibly going to Richmond to begin the season, none of that.
Do you remember the night he came up from the minors and threw five scoreless innings on a raw, wet night at Fenway Park, winning his debut and being surrounded by Atlanta and Boston media members, his life story laid out in the next day’s papers for all of Red Sox Nation who wondered about this obscure kid who had stuck it to them? Davies remembers.
“I remember everything about that game, but it seems like 15 or 20 years ago,” he said.
After going 2-1 with an 0.77 ERA in his first four major league starts, he’s 8-12 with a 7.40 ERA in 31 games (24 starts) since then, including 3-10 with an 8.38 ERA in his last 18 games (15 starts). In the latter stretch he’s allowed a .328 opponents’ average and 15 homers in 72 innings. Yikes.
“I want to go out there and pitch, not think about anything else,” said Davies, who wants to get back to the relaxed, nothing-to-lose approach he took upon being thrust into the majors two years ago.
And for the next six weeks at Dark Star, aka Disney World, and other spring-training ballparks across Florida, he’ll get that chance.
Services »
