Craig Kimbrel can hit triple digits on the radar gun, and he’s piling on saves to his major league rookie record. Fellow All-Star Jonny Venters throws 96 mph from the left side, with sink.
Eric O’Flaherty? The understated third member of the Braves’ bullpen trio, who is so integral to their success, has a 92-mph sinking fastball, slider and ...
“He’s got some ...,” said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, hesitating, not wanting to say the word he was thinking.
“Guts?” he was asked.
“Yeah,” Gonzalez said, smiling. “He doesn’t rattle out there. Same thing with Jonny. They don’t panic.”
Let’s call it conviction. O’Flaherty has confidence in his pitches and his ability. When Peter Moylan went down with a herniated disc in April, the seventh inning became a question mark. O’Flaherty answered it.
After spending much of the past two seasons as a lefty specialist, sharing the seventh inning with Moylan, O’Flaherty believed he could get right-handers out with regularity, too, and that’s what he’s shown.
He’s holding right-handers to a .230 average, while still holding lefties to .195.
He’s having a career year, with a 1.15 ERA entering the Phillies series Monday and a .218 overall opponents’ batting average.
“He’s been dying to prove that he can get righties out,” Venters said. “I think he has really thrived on the opportunity to show people that he can do that.”
Pitching coach Roger McDowell pointed out that the game that really defined what O’Flaherty could do was on the Braves first trip to Philadelphia this year, when Derek Lowe and Cliff Lee last matched up on May 6.
Lowe had a 3-0 lead after no-hitting the Phillies for six innings, but he ran into trouble in the seventh and left runners on second and third with nobody out. O’Flaherty came in and struck out the next three batters, getting, in order, left-handed Ryan Howard, right-handed Ben Francisco and lefty Raul Ibanez. The Braves won 5-0.
“It was one of the coolest things I’ve done, but I’ve believed in myself since I came over here,” said O’Flaherty, whom the Braves claimed off waivers from Seattle in November 2008 after a season marred by back problems. “It wasn’t like, ‘Oh man, I’m good now all of a sudden.’ It might have been something that opened some people’s eyes, but, for me, I already felt like I was capable of being a pretty good reliever.”
It was a little ironic, perhaps, that O'Flaherty brought up conviction when talking with catcher David Ross one day about what makes Kimbrel so good. O'Flaherty said he’d seen pitchers throw 97 mph with fear and get hit to the wall. He’d also seen pitchers throw 88 mph who believed in themselves be unhittable. His point was Kimbrel has both.
O’Flaherty, who throws in the low 90s and believes in himself, also fits that example. He credits Ross’ and Brian McCann’s game-calling for his success against righties. He saves his confidence for the field.
He showed it again Sunday against the Dodgers. He should have been out of the eighth inning on a 5-4-3 double play, but Ross was called for catcher’s interference. O’Flaherty regrouped and ended the inning on a 5-4-3 double play that held up, stranding the go-ahead run at third base.
“He’s an animal,” McCann said. “He’s probably one of the biggest competitors that we’ve got on this team. He’s one of the hardest workers on the team. It’s showing on the field.”
O’Flaherty has a strict stretching and core exercise routine he goes through every day to keep his back strong.
“He’s one of those guys that you don’t have to tell him what’s going on or what’s going to happen,” bullpen coach Eddie Perez said. “He’s always ready.”
Now he’s ready for the stretch run. Last year O’Flaherty’s final game of the season was Sept. 20 in Philadelphia because of lingering effects of mononucleosis.
“It ate away at me the whole offseason not to be able to pitch in the playoffs,” O’Flaherty said. “I’m still chomping at the bit.”
