Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 20, 1995 TAG: 9504200074
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK BULLOCK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Baseball can be a very humbling game, even for the most talented players.
Salem Avalanche pitcher Jamey Wright can attest to that. He would just as soon forget the summer of 1994, but there's too much to remember.
Like the fact that he's learning to become a pitcher and not just a thrower. That you have to use your head as well as your arm to be successful. And that the world doesn't come to an end if you give up a few runs.
Wright, the top draft choice of the Colorado Rockies in 1993, struggled in his first full season of professional baseball, compiling a 7-14 record with Asheville (N.C.) of the South Atlantic League.
Not that he thought it would be easy. He had no delusions about dominating hitters the way he had in high school.
"Shoot, no,'' he said. "I knew the competition level would be about 100 percent better.''
Even so, he didn't expect to have a losing record or an earned run average close to 6.00. He never thought he'd lose his last eight decisions of the season.
"It was pretty tough,'' he conceded. "I got to the point where I was just trying to put together a good inning or a few good batters instead of going out there trying to win.''
This definitely was not what Wright had in mind when he signed out of Westmoore High School in Oklahoma City where he was a man among boys. His senior season he struck out 97 batters in 63 innings and compiled a minuscule 0.59 ERA.
If those gaudy numbers weren't enough to warrant Wright being a No.1 draft choice, then his 6-foot-5 frame and 90 mph fastball were.
"If you just watch his stuff you can see why he's a No.1 pick,'' said Tony Torchia, who managed Wright last season and is the Avalanche hitting coach. "He's a young kid with a ton of ability. But sometimes maturity takes time to catch up with ability. I think he went through some of that last year with our club. Remember, he's just a year and a half out of high school. One of the hardest things is telling a kid he really threw the ball well, and he's going home with another loss.''
Wright readily admits that last season preyed on him mentally. He went through stretches where he was calculating his earned run average while standing on the mound between batters.
"I didn't give up many runs in high school,'' Wright said. "I wasn't used to that.''
Such adversity can only help in the long run, according to Avalanche pitching coach Bill Champion.
"At this level, players learn more from making mistakes than they do from successes,'' Champion said. "They have to learn what not to do and how to be successful in certain situations.
"Location and changing speeds is the key to pitching. They all come out throwing hard, but that's just the beginning.''
Wright has been in the low 90s consistently on the radar gun, but he knows that it takes more than a major-league fastball to get hitters out.
"I'm trying to pitch, instead of throwing it past everybody,'' he said. "Up here, everybody can hit the ball. You've got to think a little and change speeds more often.''
Changing speeds and thinking are two areas Wright intends to improve this season. He is working on a new changeup because "as hard as I've been throwing, my changeup is not as slow as it should be.''
He's also working on the "mental aspects'' of pitching and on being prepared every time he takes the mound.
"He was born with a ton of arm strength,'' Champion said. "Our job is to take that and polish him into someone who can throw three pitches for strikes at any time in the count.''
If he can do that, Wright should have no problem achieving the modest goals he has set for himself: lowering his ERA and yielding fewer hits.
He also vows to leave the statistical figuring to others more suitable for it.
"I'm not even going to look at a stat sheet this year,'' Wright said. "I spent too much time doing that last year and it didn't do me any good.''
by CNB