Sunday, April 25, 1999
Put Wohlers on R and R, not DL
Reliever needs time away, not more work
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Mark Wohlers
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If I'd been the Cincinnati Reds, I'd have sent Mark Wohlers away. Indy? No. Cabo.
“Here's your jersey, your hat and some socks,” I'd have said. “Here's your sunscreen, your flip-flops and your Hawaiian shirt. Find a big, sandy spot next to the Sea of Cortez. Sit there.”
Watch the girls go by. My, my, my. Drink rum drinks from coconuts. Locate Mr.Roark. Tell him the plane is coming. Every couple minutes, turn over.
There are no pitching coaches talking about release points in Cabo San Lucas, no managers publicly sympathizing while privately wondering what the heck is going on, no heathen sports writers crowding your fragile psyche with silly questions about your lately faded career.
No working so hard to turn things around, you feel like you're dying from trying.
Be Gilligan. You think Gilligan ever worried about release points?
Think about anything but delivering a ball 60 feet, 6 inches at 95 mph into an area no bigger than a hat box. Find your mind. Then come back to us.
Yogi Berra wasn't kidding when he said 90 percent of the game is half mental. Reds pitching coach Don Gullett may have found a flaw in Wohlers' delivery. If anyone could find it, it would be Gullett. In his seven years with the Reds, Dr.Pitching already has cured the careers of Pete Schourek and Pete Harnisch, and tuned up Jeff Brantley and Jeff Shaw. Dr. Pitching is the best. And he is definitely in for Wohlers.
But pitching is more than mechanics. It's confidence and feel and other mystical things that can't be judged by a radar gun. In trying to remember who he was, Wohlers needs to forget who he has become.
“I hear you,” Wohlers said Saturday. “But you can't be on vacation your entire life. People are paying you a lot of money. The only way to overcome something is to face it.”
Wohlers will work his way back. To find the control he inexplicably lost, he will throw and adjust and listen to Gullett. He doesn't believe in a point of diminishing returns, when the more you try, the harder you hit the wall.
During the '94 strike, Wohlers worked in a garage. He likes tinkering with cars and he wanted to see how the other half lived. You can be a millionaire and still think like a working man.
Wohlers threw 46 full-speed batting practice pitches Friday night, to optimistic reviews. One three-pitch sequence made Gullett proud:
After nearly beheading Chris Stynes with a fastball, Wohlers gathered himself and broke off consecutive breaking balls for strikes.
“What were you trying to do on that pitch?” Gullett asked Wohlers of the fastball.
“I was trying to throw it 150” mph, Wohlers said.
“You got out of what you're trying to do. Make the adjustment.”
Wohlers did.
“Gullett has you thinking,” I offered.
“No,” Wohlers said. “He has me not thinking.”
“A couple times, he started working at a slower pace. I could see the wheels turning,” Gullett said.
Don't think, Dr. Pitching told Wohlers. Don't slow down for doubt. “Just get up there and throw the ball.”
Wohlers is on the DL with what the Reds call “anxiety disorder.” You have to believe Wohlers would rather be out with torn knee ligaments than something as ambiguous as anxiety disorder. You can fix a knee surgically.
But Wohlers is fighting it. With Gullett, he may be winning. “Feeling what's right, knowing when it's wrong and knowing how to make an adjustment” is how Gullett ex plained Wohlers' rehab. This is what Wohlers did against Stynes on Friday.
If Wohlers makes it all the way back, he'll be the story of the year, and Dr. Pitching will have revived more careers than cosmetic surgery.
Wohlers is cautious, though. “I'll trust success,” Wohlers said, “when I have some.”
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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