Until Monday night at Gwinnett, left-hander Manny Banuelos, 24, had never pitched past the seventh inning in his professional career. So his wife, Yanely, can hardly be blamed for her surprise when he went out to pitch the eighth and her premature congratulatory text message after that inning was over.
Banuelos wasn’t finished yet. He used a 13-pitch ninth to complete the first nine-inning shutout of his career, on a two-hitter. He gave up a single in the sixth and a single in the seventh and never let a runner take second base. He nabbed the first base runner on his first pickoff of the year and the second one on a force play at second base.
“I don’t think I can be better than that,” Banuelos said. “I was pretty excited. The best thing was my body and my arm felt great, felt pretty strong.”
Pitching nine innings was another milestone in a promising season for Banuelos. He is 6-2 and leads the Triple-A International League in ERA at 2.03 in his second season back from Tommy John surgery.
Banuelos has allowed two or fewer earned runs in each of his past 10 starts and pitched more innings (79 2/3 innings) than all last season (76 2/3 innings) in the Yankees organization.
“I had a lot of issues with my arm last year,” Banuelos said. “It was bothering me every time I pitched, and the next four days, I felt a lot of soreness and tightness. This year it’s a lot different. My arm is healthy. (Monday) I threw 101 pitches. (Tuesday) I played catch, and it felt pretty good.”
The Yankees traded Banuelos to the Braves on Jan. 1 for relievers David Carpenter and Chasen Shreve. Banuelos was surprised at first but relieved it was the Braves, a team he grew up watching on TV in Mexico, and whose nickname he first wore in Little League.
“I still have that jersey,” Banuelos said.
Now one of the greatest connections he feels to the Braves organization is through his relationship with Gwinnett pitching coach Marty Reed. “Marty is awesome,” Banuelos said. “He’s helped me a lot I can tell.”
Reed has taught him how to use scouting reports and how to study hitters on video, things he didn’t do with the Yankees. Reed has helped him gain confidence even though his velocity is not back to its pre-surgery levels. Banuelos, who threw mid-90s before the surgery, is sitting at 90, 91 mph and can touch 93, 94.
“I said to him is, ‘What if it doesn’t come back?’” Reed said. “If you can’t throw 95 again, are you finished as a baseball player?’ He said ‘no.’ ‘Then you’re going to have to learn how to pitch.’”
Reed keeps Banuelos guessing, like in his bullpen session leading to Monday’s start. Banuelos has walked five batters in five innings his previous start.
“He told me, ‘Today you’re not going to throw strikes,’” Banuelos said. “I was like, ‘What?’”
Reed used a ploy where he asked Banuelos to work exclusively off the plate, trying to get as close as he could to the corners but not over the plate.
“It really gets the pitcher focused on where he’s locating balls,” Reed said. “His margin for error on the outside corner is very small because he can’t get it on the plate, and he knows a pitch that is way off the plate is way too far. So you focus him in on where he should be trying to throw it. The tough-to-execute pitches get a little bit easier when they start working on that.”
Banuelos didn’t walk a batter for the first time all season Monday and struck out five.
“(Manager Brian Snitker) and I looked at each other after that game, and you felt like it happened to one of your own kids,” Reed said. “For me, he’s just a special guy, he’s everything that’s right about the game.”
Banuelos is just grateful to be pitching after missing most of 2012 and all of 2013. If not for how closely the Braves are monitoring his workload, he might have been the one called to the majors over Matt Wisler last week.
As it is, Reed thinks if the Braves play it smart and skip an occasional start or back off on some bullpen sessions, Banuelos could pitch a full season. If that’s the case, he could find himself up in the big leagues after all.
“If I pitch well, it can be any time,” Banuelos said. “So just be patient. I know what the Braves are doing with me and they have idea and have a plan, so all I have to do is pitch well.”
