May 11 2007 12:30 AM
The Times catches up with our secret weapon.
I think it's cool that he didn't have to fight to get ahead of Schoeneweiss.
Feliciano Uses Guile to Become Successful
By BEN SHPIGEL
Published: May 11, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO, May 10 — When Pedro Feliciano played a season in Japan, he had a daily routine. He threw. Then he threw some more. After throwing, he would throw and then throw again.
“It was crazy,” Feliciano said. “I had never thrown that much in my life.”
In 2005, Feliciano took what amounted to a one-year hiatus from the Mets to play for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. He returned a changed pitcher. The daily 25-pitch bullpen sessions improved his arm strength and durability.
What Feliciano called a “much smaller strike zone” and more patient hitters in Japan required him to sharpen his command. The second-inning massages, standard practice for pitchers there, loosened his muscles and increased his flexibility.
The result: The 30-year-old Feliciano, after emerging as the Mets’ most reliable left-handed reliever last season, has not allowed an earned run this season in 13 1/3 innings. He has done this despite often being summoned to neutralize the top left-handed hitters — Barry Bonds, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, for starters — and also being asked to pitch when the opposing lineup turns over in the later innings.
In his latest outing, Tuesday against the Giants, Feliciano entered in the eighth inning and set down the second, third and fourth hitters, freezing Bonds with a back-door slider for an inning-ending strikeout.
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Feliciano said. “The pitch was right down the middle. I guess he didn’t think I could throw it there.”
The back-door slider is a staple among many left-handed relievers, which is why Feliciano has worked hard to add a variation to it. Only recently has he started throwing it inside to left-handed hitters — the front-door slider, if you will — starting it at their hips before it curls over the corner of the plate.
Feliciano said that he could tell by a hitter’s body language which pitch he was expecting. If the hitter moves forward in the box, he said, he is banking on a fastball. Perfect time for a slider, Feliciano thinks. Or if the hitter, having seen a steady diet of sliders, tries to cover more of the plate, Feliciano is more than happy to jam him inside.
“When you talk about relievers in baseball, in my mind, he’s at the top because he can get out both lefties and righties,” Mets General Manager Omar Minaya said.
Feliciano’s journey in professional baseball began 12 years ago, when he was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 31st round of the 1995 draft, but injuries to his shoulder hampered his progress. In 2001, after six years in the minors, he signed as a free agent with Cincinnati. He was traded to the Mets in August 2002 in a deal for Shawn Estes and pitched in 51 games for them. He went 1-1 with a 4.21 earned run average over the next three seasons.
Before Feliciano left for Japan, the Mets’ pitching coach, Rick Peterson, pushed him to drop down to more of a three-quarters arm delivery. The change sharpened the break on his slider, making him more effective against left-handed hitters.
After not allowing a run in three games for Puerto Rico at last year’s World Baseball Classic, Feliciano made the Mets as a nonroster player out of spring training. But he was sent down to Class AAA Norfolk and replaced in the bullpen by Darren Oliver when Víctor Zambrano sustained a hamstring injury three days before the season started.
Two weeks later, when outfielder Víctor Díaz was sent down, the Mets recalled Feliciano. He proceeded to allow only one earned run in his first 15 appearances, gaining Manager Willie Randolph’s trust.
Since returning from Japan, Feliciano has not allowed a hit to some of baseball’s best left-handed batters: Bobby Abreu (five at-bats, five strikeouts), Adam LaRoche (six at-bats), Ken Griffey Jr. (two at-bats) and Bonds (two at-bats, two strikeouts). Feliciano has also frustrated switch-hitters who turned around to the right side, retiring Chipper Jones in all three meetings and allowing one hit to Jimmy Rollins in nine at-bats.
Don’t get Feliciano wrong; he is proud of those accomplishments. But in recalling his excellent 2006, when he went 7-2 with a 2.09 E.R.A., he beams when the subject turns to two at-bats.
On May 20 against the Yankees, Feliciano relieved Billy Wagner, who had coughed up a four-run lead in the ninth, and retired Johnny Damon on a fielder’s choice. The second moment came a few months later when Utley, needing a hit to extend his 35-game hitting streak, struck out swinging.
“It was a 2-2 slider,” Feliciano said. “That one definitely stands out.”
