Peter Diana photos, Post-Gazette
Mike Gonzalez: -- "It's up to me. Are you going to be able to do it or not? You've either got it in you or not."
BRADENTON, Fla. -- It is heartening, Mike Gonzalez will say, that the Pirates made the leap of faith to designate him their closer even though he has four career saves.
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It is comforting that the team signed veteran Roberto Hernandez, partly as insurance but mostly to offer an experienced ear.
It is a relief, too, that he is backed by a bullpen that should be among the National League's best.
But come April 3, the hard truth is, none of it will matter much.
He could take the mound that afternoon with the Pirates up by one run, with 55,000-plus rattling Milwaukee's Miller Park, with Carlos Lee and the heart of the Brewers' order waiting to take their cuts, with his teammates having spent the previous three hours batting, sliding and diving to place that lead into his left palm.
And just like that, he is suspended on that pitching rubber like a tightrope walker with no net.
"You know, I've pictured that," Gonzalez said at his McKechnie Field clubhouse stall the other day. "I can learn as much as I can, I can have all this help, but it's still about getting the job done. It's up to me. Are you going to be able to do it or not? You've either got it in you or not."
He thumps his chest.
"But that's OK. Really. Because I know what's in here."
The talent
Gonzalez, 27, has two full seasons of Major League Baseball after a slow climb through the minors since the Pirates made him their 30th-round draft pick in 1997. His lone experience as a closer was sharing the duty with Salomon Torres last September. To boot, he had only six saves in the minors after spending his first six professional years as a starter who struggled to pitch deep into games.
Saves leaders
How steep is Mike Gonzalez's challenge? No Pirates reliever has had more saves as a rookie than Rich Loiselle's 29 in 1997, and no left-hander of any experience level has had more than 14. The single-season save leaders:
Saves
Pitcher
Years
?46
Mike Williams
2002
?43
Jose Mesa
2004
?34
Jim Gott
1988
?31
Kent Tekulve
1978, '79
?30
Dave Giusti
1971
?29
Rich Loiselle
1997
?27
Jose Mesa
2005
?26
Bill Landrum
1989
?26
Rich Gossage
1977
?26
Dave Giusti
1970
25
Mike Williams
2003
That makes the critical role of closer the Pirates' area of greatest volatility entering the season, other than, of course, the starting rotation.
Nonetheless, management decided early in the offseason Gonzalez would be the man.
"I think we've always felt Gonzalez had the talent to do it," general manager Dave Littlefield said. "We felt this was time to see what he can do."
On one hand, the call was easy given Gonzalez's talent.
When team officials discuss the best material on the Pirates' staff these days, it is Gonzalez they cite, not Oliver Perez. He has a three-pitch repertoire that leans hard on a 96-mph fastball, and his delivery is deceptive enough to help him conceal it. His career numbers include a 2.48 ERA, 119 strikeouts in 1012/3 innings and a .202 opponents' batting average.
On the other hand, the team wanted Gonzalez to have a mentor.
As a result, Littlefield's next move was to sign Hernandez out of free agency. Hernandez, 41, was coming off a strong season as a setup man with the New York Mets and ranks 10th on the all-time saves list with 324, but Littlefield and manager Jim Tracy emphasized to him he was acquired in large part to help Gonzalez.
Hernandez recognizes that by describing it as "my No. 1 goal," and he appears to be taking it seriously. His stall is next to Gonzalez's, and the two are seen together just about everywhere.
"I'll be here for him," Hernandez said. "All year, all the time."
Gonzalez seems to genuinely appreciate the tutelage.
"First, I was lucky to have Jose Mesa there for two years. Now, to have Roberto Hernandez, a guy with even more saves. ... Just to have someone like that to talk to means a great deal to me."
The temperament
The first lesson, Hernandez said, will be developing consistency off the field.
"Mike's going to have to learn a routine. We're going to have to find out what will work best for him. When does he get his arm loose? How much time does he need to get ready? You have to do whatever it takes to make those eight or nine pitches you need to end the game."
The first priority?
"You have to trust yourself. That's No. 1. When you blow one, you have to bounce back."
Kent Tekulve, the Pirates' all-time saves leader and a special instructor in camp, had a chance to graduate into the role when he was promoted to Pittsburgh in 1974 and taken under the wing of closer Dave Giusti. Five years later, he would set down the Baltimore Orioles for the final three outs of the World Series.
He echoed Hernandez's assessment of the importance of shaking off defeat.
"What I learned right away -- and Mike will learn -- is that being a closer isn't about how hard you throw, where you throw, how you do this or that on the mound," Tekulve said. "It's about how you adjust to adversity. You can't build yourself into a position where you think you're going to save every game."
To achieve that, all concerned agree, Gonzalez will have to find a way to calm down on the mound. So soft-spoken and easygoing off the field, he tends to carry electric emotions with him to work.
That trait might have been best evident Sept. 28 at Wrigley Field, when his fist-pumping, sleeve-tugging and other fidgeting seemed beyond the usual while recording a save against the Chicago Cubs.
"Yeah, I know," Gonzalez said, smiling at the memory. "Last year was my first time doing it. That was going to be emotional because I only closed three games all season. Now that I'm going to be in that role every day, I think I can tone it down a bit."
He laughed.
"But it might take a few times before that happens."
Hernandez already has noticed some of Gonzalez's fire.
"You've got to harness it, channel it to your advantage," he said. "And that won't be easy. You're out there in the bullpen, and you know you're penciled in to do nothing other than come in for the ninth inning. It can be gut-wrenching. You build yourself up. You wait. It can really get you going by the time you get out there."
Tracy is leaving most of the handling of Gonzalez to pitching coach Jim Colborn and Hernandez, but this is one area he plans to stress.
"I had a certain guy in Los Angeles named Eric Gagne who was pretty emotional, too, but he worked with it," he said. "Mike can, too."
The time
Although Gonzalez had no firm idea until this winter he would be the closer, he has talked about it -- and, apparently, thought about it -- for years.
"To tell you the truth, it's something I've dreamed of since I was a kid. You either want to be the starter or the closer."
To that end, he kept a particularly close eye on prominent left-handed closers when the Pirates would face them last season.
"I watched Billy Wagner, B.J. Ryan, definitely a young guy like Brian Fuentes. I watched everything they did, and I kind of got an overall idea about how they go about things. You see those guys, and they're aggressive. They go right after guys. They've got that short memory, too. You can see any of these guys get rocked one night and be lights-out the next."
He paused and looked over at Hernandez's stall.
"That's what I hear is going to be most important for me."
So far this spring, Tracy has not used Gonzalez in a ninth inning, mostly to make sure he is facing major-league hitters before they are pulled late in games. But he plans to go with more conventional slotting later in the month, and that will represent the first tests.
Gonzalez sounds eager to simply fast-forward to Milwaukee.
"I can't wait, man. Oh, just thinking about it ... I want to get out there and show what I can do."
First Published: March 12, 2006, 5:00 a.m.
