No rest for Braves’ Lowe between starts

Most Braves players find time before games to chill. Derek Lowe? Not so much.

The new ace pitcher is a blur of constant motion. He’s either coming from one workout or going to another. When he slows down long enough to grab something from his locker, he’s usually glistening.

“I have seen him an awful lot through the first month of the season, dripping wet with sweat,” Chipper Jones said.

That’s because Lowe, who starts tonight against the Astros, has just finished some agility work, long tossing or running the stadium steps.

He tackles the lower deck at Turner Field once between starts — two steps at a time going up, every step coming down, from one end of the stadium to the other. And back.

After 45 minutes outside, Lowe breezes in, Ipod still on, drops a one-liner on whomever he passes, and just as quickly, he’s gone again. Off to lift weights.

“I don’t like to just sit in front of my locker,” Lowe said. “I can’t stand it because there’s so much you can be doing to help yourself out, or help your teammates.”

Lowe has proved to be one of the most durable pitchers in baseball. He’s one of only three active players along with Brad Ausmus and Livan Hernandez to play 12 or more seasons without going on the disabled list. Now we know why.

“I’ve never seen anybody do that much work,” said manager Bobby Cox, who is often the only one in the clubhouse when Lowe arrives at 1:30 p.m.

In spring training, Matt Diaz said he’d pass Lowe finishing his workout as he showed up to start his — at 7 a.m.

“(John) Smoltz was like that,” Diaz said. “A lot of pitchers that eat up a lot of innings have the same mentality, and that’s they’re going to work harder on the days they don’t pitch than the days they do.”

Lowe, 35, began this routine five years ago with Boston. He was 30 and starting to think about longevity. He let Red Sox trainer Chris Correnti critique his lanky 6-foot-6 frame.

“When we started working out, I was as inflexible as this table,” said Lowe, thumping a picnic table in the Braves clubhouse. “He said if you continue to be this inflexible you’re going to have back problems, hamstring problems, especially your hips.”

Lowe’s workout always starts with stretching. It’s followed by agility drills, which he does to mimic short bursts of activity pitchers get. He traces a ladder-shaped grid in the warning track dirt.

Lowe is Rocky IV to Ivan Drago. He likes his workouts outdoors.

“I don’t like doing any elliptical machines, I don’t like riding a bike,” Lowe said. “I get more out of it if I do it high intensity on the field, not in the air conditioning.”

He comes inside to lift weights and do core muscle and rotator cuff exercises.

Then he heads back out to the bullpen to work on mechanics. Every day between starts Lowe is on the mound simulating his motion.

“People think I’m crazy,” he said. “But I like to get out there and it’s quiet. And you just go over mechanics to where they get so comfortable, you don’t have to think about it in a game.”

Sometimes he’s there for an hour.

“We’re not hitters,” Lowe said. “We can’t just go in the cage. I can’t go on the mound and throw for an hour and 10 minutes.”

That’s the kind of work ethic that makes the Braves feel justified in their four-year $60 million contract to a 35-year-old pitcher, right up there with Lowe’s 2-1 record so far and his 3.10 ERA.

But ultimately, Lowe does it for himself.

“Doing the work in between for me is more peace of mind,” Lowe said. “I can accept a good game or a bad game because I know that I did everything I possibly could before that game.”