Text Size:
A|
A|
A
Email
Print Peter Diana, Post-Gazette Salomon Torres: "[Being the closer is] going to test my endurance, my concentration and my focus." |
BRADENTON, Fla. -- If it makes anyone feel better about Salomon Torres becoming the Pirates' closer, he already is talking like a crazy man.
"It's going to test my endurance, my concentration and my focus," he tells an interviewer, standing at his McKechnie Field stall. "But that's OK. That's something I can control. And I like when I can control something, when I can look in the mirror and say, 'OK, this is what you need to do to get the job done, Sully.' "
He pauses to remind the interviewer ...
"This is me talking to myself, OK?"
Uh, right.
 |
 |
|
|
Peter Diana, Post-Gazette Salomon Torres' playful side comes out early in camp in Bradenton, Fla. Click photo for larger image. 
|
 |
Even with the element of eccentricity already an apparent slam dunk, precedent shows Torres is correct: He is going to need all those traits as he enters his first full season as a closer at the ripe age of 35, and doubtless many more.
Above all, of course, he must pitch well. The sinker must sink. The splitter must split. The strike zone must be commanded from first pitch to the fireworks going off over the river.
At the same time, Torres' still will be irrelevant if he is trembling. Which means that, by the time he climbs the mound for his first save situation in April, he probably does need to look into that mirror.
See who he is.
Understand it.
Believe in it.
Torres had an hour-long talk with Jim Tracy in the manager's office early this spring to hash out a plan to prepare his arm for the coming season. Instead, they spent the time talking about his mind.
"Sully sees it as a matter of mental preparation," Tracy said. "And I'm inclined to agree with him."
There are stereotypes for closers, but there should not be.
When it comes to pitching, they range from fireballers such as Billy Wagner to changeup master Trevor Hoffman, from the deception of Mike Williams to the try-and-hit-this approach of Jose Mesa.
The emotional range is just as broad.
At the most flat-line end of the spectrum would be someone such as Dan Kolb, a former All-Star closer with the Milwaukee Brewers now trying to make the Pirates' bullpen. There was no fist-pumping or finger-pointing in his world. Usually, it was three ground-ball outs, shake the catcher's hand and shower.
"Never too high, never too low," Kolb said. "Whatever happens that night, good or bad, it's done with that last out."
On the other end, one might find Mike Gonzalez. While with the Pirates, he often was advised to check his emotions, to focus on pitching. But to him, they were one and the same, and it became abundantly evident why when he went 24 for 24 in saves last season.
"It's all right here," Gonzalez said, thumping the tomahawk that now covers his heart in an Atlanta Braves uniform. "That fire's got to burn, man. And with me, it's got to come out."
And where might Torres fall in the spectrum?
Gonzalez thinks he knows.
When his elbow developed tendinitis in late August, Torres was promoted from setup man to closer and went 12 for 13 in saves the rest of the way, boasting a 1.26 ERA in that span. And what started out as a gag -- Torres leaping off the mound at Wrigley Field to mimic Gonzalez's celebration Sept. 4 -- soon became an original, animated act of its own.
Torres went from simply leaving the mound to leaping, night after night.
"There's no doubt in my mind I saw a different Salomon as soon as he became the closer. He had more intensity, more emotion," Gonzalez said. "Seriously, look at the film of him pitching in the eighth inning, then what happened when he went to the ninth. He turned it up. He took it to that next level."
Gonzalez laughed.
"And he can credit me for that."
Told of that, Torres smiled.
"Yes, I do have to give Gonzo credit. He pushed me. That was the new and improved Sully, what you saw in September. That's what I needed to compete at that level."
Some might argue that is nonsense. After all, three outs are three outs.
"Not those three outs," Torres continued. "If you are a closer who is like a little lamb and behaves like, 'Oh, I'm so nice to everybody,' they're going to devour you. Good hitters, they can smell blood a mile away. You've got to come out of that bullpen gate like a bulldog. You have to come with desire, with conviction."
He will need, then, some kind of raucous entrance song at PNC Park, right? If not Hoffman's "Hell's Bells" or Gonzalez's "Here Comes the Boom," then something ...
"I don't think so," Torres said. "I'm trying to talk them out of that."
Told that there is virtually no chance the sound system will simply stay silent, he gives in a little.
"How about a love song by Boyz II Men? I'm still a nice guy, you know."
If nice guys cannot be closers, Torres is bound to fail.
Miserably.
His is an inherently warm, engaging personality, the product of a devoutly religious lifestyle and tight, family-first upbringing in his native Dominican Republic. And the borders within which he leads his life stretch far outside baseball's white lines.
His most visible passion is for charity. In addition to helping with the Pirates' many community outreaches, he generates his own. Two months ago, for example, he urged teammates to donate equipment to poor Dominican children, succeeded in getting Dick's Sporting Goods to pitch in the bags in which to package them, paid for the air freight, then flew to San Pedro to distribute them personally.
All 400-plus.
"One of the best experiences of my life," Torres recalled.
His life endeavor, as he calls it, is building baseball academies in the Dominican Republic. He has completed two, one leased to the Braves, the other to the Texas Rangers. And he was involved in every aspect, from financing construction out of his Pirates salary to designing the complex on his laptop to helping dig a sand pit.
Why the sand pit?
"My idea," he said. "Children can start out slow but become faster if their feet and legs have more resistance. You should try running in this."
Torres dabbles in music, as well, and not just when he playfully croons in the clubhouse after victories. He has been writing songs for years, mostly just lyrics with musical assistance from professionals, but he now is learning the piano, too.
"Mostly love songs," he said. "I wrote a song once about the Pirates' fans and their dedication, but I'm not ready for people to hear that."
Family always has come first. When Torres' father-in-law was stricken with multiple myeloma, a form of cancer, in the Dominican Republic two years ago, he hastily arranged for Carlos Donato's flight to Pittsburgh and treatments that likely saved his life, then cared for him in his home for months.
To be sure, there is no more beloved figure in the Pirates' family than Torres. He is a mentor to young pitchers, a guiding light for often-wayward reliever Damaso Marte and, maybe above all, that key someone who transcends the English-Spanish barrier that divides so many baseball teams.
No one in the clubhouse has known him longer than bullpen mate John Grabow.
"It's hard to put into words how you feel about someone like Salomon, but I think admiration stands out," Grabow said. "I think baseball ranks about No. 10 on his list. He's just an all around, complete, fantastic human being."
Loyalty is a trait, too.
Some players around Major League Baseball view Pittsburgh as purgatory, but Torres' passion for the Pirates -- the team that signed him out of a three-year retirement in 2002 -- is as fierce as it is genuine.
When there was speculation last July that the Pirates might trade Torres, he was fairly shaking in the final few hours before the deadline.
Why?
For one, he and his wife, Belkis, and daughters Ashley and Allison had just closed on a house in a Pittsburgh suburb where he plans to live "a long time."
For another ...
"This is my team," he said. "The Pittsburgh Pirates gave me my chance, and I want to reward them by being part of the winner that the people here have been waiting for so long. I want that more than anything. And, someday, when I am done, I would be proud to be a coach or serve any way they ask."
So, within the framework of that personality, what will it take for Torres to succeed?
First will be avoiding the poor starts that have plagued him the past three years, where his ERA has been a full run higher in the first half than the second.
He sounds confident in having the answer there, and he delivers it in the form of a confession.
"I know myself and the approach I took into other seasons. I was just ... there, just another player."
Which is not to suggest, he stressed, that he gave less than his best.
"No, no, no. It's about focus. There were times when I would throw a fastball just because I wasn't concentrating the way I should be. I can't do that now. If I throw 10 pitches, they have to be 10 pitches that I know why I'm throwing them."
Next will be adjusting to a lesser workload. His 94 appearances led the majors last season.
Gonzalez laughed when that topic was raised.
"The closer's job is going to drain Sully in a way the setup job never could," he said. "Trust me: If he pitches 60 games, it's going to feel like those 94."
Another adjustment will be to a far greater level of failure. There will come a night -- several, actually, even for the best closers -- when his teammates will eat dirt to score runs and the starting pitcher will sweat his way through eight shutout innings ... and he will throw it all away.
And get booed.
And have doubts raised.
"The single biggest thing is learning how to forget," Kolb said. "As a setup guy or long guy, you go back over it, look at it on video, and that's it. But, if you blow a save as the closer on Saturday and have a game Sunday afternoon ... it's probably the toughest thing I've had to deal with in this business."
Torres' arm can handle it, no question about that. No pitcher on any team has been more durable in the past half-decade.
But can his brain?
And his heart?
"Oh, yes," he replied, eyes widening. "And you will see that. Pittsburgh will see that. This is a challenge, and I accept it. It's a great opportunity to take my game to a different level. A reliever's ultimate goal is to become a closer. I am ready."
Sweet September
Top closers in the National League last September:
| Pitcher, team | IP | H | SO | Svs | ERA |
| Salomon Torres, Pirates | 14.1 | 15 | 20 | 11 | 1.26 |
| Trevor Hoffman, Padres | 12.0 | 7 | 13 | 10 | 1.50 |
| Billy Wagner, Mets | 11.0 | 15 | 14 | 8 | 2.45 |
| Takashi Saito, Dodgers | 8.0 | 9 | 22 | 8 | 2.03 |
| Tom Gordon, Phillies | 10.0 | 11 | 8 | 7 | 3.60 |
| Bob Wickman, Braves | 10.2 | 12 | 10 | 7 | 1.69 |
| Brian Fuentes, Rockies | 11.0 | 11 | 7 | 7 | 4.91 |
