Saarloos Q and A

http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/qacorner/?id=416


BOSTON (Ticker) -- If you were to call Kirk Saarloos' first season in the Class AA Texas League a "honeymoon," you don't know how right you would be.

Saarloos, 9-1 with a league-best 1.43 ERA after his first 12 starts, took the league's Player of the Month award for May after he went 4-0 with a 0.26 ERA in five starts.

But, you won't see the minor leagues' best pitcher in the Texas League All-Star Game next week. Instead, the 23-year-old Long Beach, California native is getting married on Sunday, a day before the All-Star game.

Saarloos and his bride-to-be, Kristen Roberts, will be married in Seattle. The couple had made wedding plans for this weekend by figuring that Saarloos, who had never started a game as a professional entering this season, would be available. Little did they know that Saarloos would be the main attraction the gathering in Round Rock, which is on pace to shatter the mark for league attendance for a third straight season.

Saarloos, who was selected by the Astros in the third round of the 2001 draft out of Cal. State-Fullerton, appeared in 22 games out of the bullpen last season for Lexington in the low Class A South Atlantic League. He compiled a 1.17 ERA, with 40 strikeouts, just 18 hits and seven walks allowed in 30 2/3 innings.

On April 8, in his first-ever pro start, Saarloos was tagged by El Paso for nine runs in four innings. Since then, he has been virtually unhittable. Saarloos has won nine straight decisions, compiling an astounding 0.38 ERA in that span. He has gone 47 1/3 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run.

Last weekend, Saarloos took some time to discuss his adjustment to becoming a starting pitcher and how much easier it is to pitch knowing that the biggest day of his life is less than a week away.

Q: Is this season a surprise to you?

A: I don't know. I really haven't thought about it. I just try to go out there and pitch and do what I've been doing, which is locating my fastball, changing speeds and keeping guys off balance. I really don't go into a season with any expectations. I just want to go out and pitch, do what I can and see where the chips fall.

Q: What was different from your first start of the season as opposed to your next 11?

A: That first game, I had a lot of adrenaline, excitement, and I think I didn't have as much sink (on the pitches) because my arm was real lively and real excited. I didn't do things that I was capable of doing. One of those things is being able to pitch inside and pitching inside successfully. Pitching in there and letting hitters know that you're going to throw in there and you're going to get them out with that fastball inside. I didn't do that at all. I didn't throw fastballs in really well. And, when I did make a good off-speed pitch to the outside corner of the plate, they could lean outside and go get those pitches and hit them, because I wasn't keeping them off balance and keeping them scared of that fastball inside.

Q: When you talk about someone who's going to be afraid of a "fastball in", you would think of someone who throws 95 miles an hour. Yet, you only reach 86-87. Have you always pitched at that speed?

A: Since I was a little kid, I was never really blessed with a good fastball. I had to come through all the levels that I've played in, and I've had to learn how to locate and change speeds. I think that's been a key to my success, knowing that I've never been blessed with a great fastball so I never have to rely just on that one pitch. I really had to learn how to pitch at a young age.

Q: (Round Rock pitching coach) Mike Maddux says that your release point is at the same place for every pitch. Is that because you've had to throw all these "other" pitches early on in your career?

A: I think so. I didn't start throwing breaking stuff until I was about 13 or 14. That stuff really had to work for me in order to be successful on the mound. Ten years of doing it over and over and over again now. Repetition makes you learn how to do things exactly the same and continue to do things time and time again.

Q: Did you start or relieve in college?

A: The first three years at Cal St. Fullerton, I closed. My last year, I would close on Friday and start on Sunday. In college, I was reliever. Then, my fourth year, I started, so I have a lot more experience out of the bullpen. Starting is something where you just have to get your body ready and your mind set that you're going to be out there for seven, eight, or even nine innings.

Q: You've been able to get through seven frequently, and you've been able to work into the eighth but never get through a full eight innings. Is it more difficult that you ever imagined?

A: If we didn't have a pitch count, I think I could go eight or nine! One hundred pitches are about where I'm at right now, and usually that's where I'm at by the end of the seventh inning. My job right now is just to give them the six, seven or eight quality innings, and hopefully we're ahead. Then I've done my job keeping us in the game.

Q: Your walks are down, but you're still throwing 100 pitches after six or seven innings. Is that the one thing that you would like to cut down on?

A: I've been pretty aggressive getting ahead, and this year, I've been getting a lot of strikeouts, which is great. But, when you get strikeouts, it means you're throwing a lot of pitches. My last outing (on June 6), I had a bunch of strikeouts early in the game. Then, the fourth, fifth and through the seventh inning, I think I got all groundball outs. It was about seven pitches an inning, and that's why I got into the eighth.

Q: Entering this season, your first professional season as a starter, did you go back to your senior year when you became a starter to get yourself adjusted again?

A: Yeah. I kind of used the same types of things that I was doing in college in terms of preparing myself and routines. I didn't really change a whole lot.

Q: When you're on the mound, and because the wedding is coming up so soon, what are you thinking more -- pitching or the wedding?

A: Pitching. When I'm at the yard, it's all about baseball. I don't think of any personal issues. I have plenty of time on the bus and on road trips to think about that. But when I'm on the field, it's all baseball and all business.

Q: Because you have something as big as this coming up in your life, does this help you focus ever more on the field?

A: I think so. Baseball has always been a place where, no matter what's going on in your personal life or what's going on outside of baseball...When you get to the baseball field, you relax. You can just worry about playing baseball, having fun and not worry about anything else that is going on.