OAKLAND — On a team whose starting pitchers have been victims of a raft of injuries over the past few years, Garrett Richards stands alone in a couple ways.
He’s had the most serious injuries. He’s also performed the best when healthy.
The confluence of those facts brings Richards to the forefront of any discussion about how good the Angels can be.
If only Richards could stay healthy, Angels fans lament, he has the stuff to be an ace. In between stints on the disabled list, Richards has managed a career that matches up with some of the game’s Cy Young-winning elite. His 96 mph fastballs and sharp sliders compose a dominant arsenal, one to which he’s worked to add a curve ball this spring.
He will bring all that to the mound on Thursday against the Oakland A’s, throwing the first pitch of the Angels’ season.
“I know what I can do when I’m on the mound,” he said. “I think everybody knows that. The name of the game is staying healthy, and that’s what I’m concentrating on now.”
The skeptics will say they have heard this before. A year ago, in fact, Richards seemed to be a stem-cell therapy success story, avoiding Tommy John surgery to make a healthy debut. He was not even five innings into his season when he walked off the mound with a trainer, not to return until September.
While he was out, Richards heard all the critics say he should have just had Tommy John surgery in 2016, but he has no regrets. The injuries of 2016 and 2017 were, he said, “totally unrelated. Two different body parts.”
Richards insisted repeatedly last year, and again this spring, that last year’s biceps nerve issue was a fluke, one that took weeks to adequately diagnose.
Now, Richards is beginning a season after a winter of increased flexibility training, which he hopes will keep him healthy. The Angels also plan to use a six-man rotation, which will often give Richards and the other starters another day of recovery.
After tearing a tendon in his knee in 2014, blowing out his elbow in 2016 and suffering the nerve issue in 2017, Richards figures he’s due for some good luck, too.
“Hopefully,” he quipped, “everything works in threes, and I’m done. … Hopefully the other stuff is behind me, and I can get back on track.”
He’s been gone for so long – just 12 starts in the past two seasons – that it’s easy to forget just what it looks like when he is “on track.”
Since Richards became a full-time starter in July 2013, he has a 3.16 ERA over 83 starts. To put that into context, only 14 pitchers have started at least 80 games in the past four years with an ERA of 3.16 or better.
Among them: Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Max Scherzer, Corey Kluber, Madison Bumgarner, Dallas Keuchel, Chris Sale and Jake Arrieta.
Among the pitchers with a worse ERA than Richards over the past four years: Felix Hernandez, David Price, Cole Hamels, Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander.
Richards’ consistency is also notable. He’s allowed three runs or less in 76 percent of his starts since becoming a full-time starter. The major league average is 64 percent. The Angels have a .566 winning percentage in his starts over that span, and for much of that time they haven’t had an offense or defense as good as they believe they have now.
If the Angels get a healthy Richards for 25 to 30 starts, they have essentially acquired an ace. Richards’ teammates want to see this for the obvious reason that it will make their team better, but also because they want to see a friend who has suffered so much rewarded.
“We saw what he can do a few years ago, being healthy,” fellow starter Matt Shoemaker said. “I want to see him go out and dominate, and us go out and dominate. Knowing the capability is there, it’s exciting.”
In 2014, Richards was enjoying his breakout season, posting a 2.61 ERA through 26 starts. He didn’t get a chance to finish that season after he crumpled to the ground at Fenway Park, his knee shredded when he twisted it covering first base.
In 2015, he started 32 games and pitched 207-1/3 innings, posting a 3.65 ERA. Since then, even though he’s started just 12 times because of the injuries, he has a 2.31 ERA in those games.
The fact that Richards has been consistently good, even when pitching sporadically around injuries, gives him and the Angels hope.
“It’s not just potential,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “If you look at the season Garrett was putting together in 2014, it’s very real. Hopefully he’s going to be throwing the ball as well as he has all spring, and stay healthy. And we’re very confident he will.”
If that’s the case, it is going to prompt the next question: will the Angels re-sign him?
Richards, 29, is eligible for free agency at the end of the 2018 season. He said the Angels have not approached him about an extension, but he’s certainly ready to listen. He’s been with the organization since it drafted him in 2009.
“I am just going to go put up numbers,” he said. “I’m sure at some point we’ll talk about something. … I’m interested to see whatever the appeal of free agency is, but this is all I’ve ever known. It has sentimental value. I have known everybody around here since the minor leagues. This is a place I’d like to stay, but sometimes it works out differently. This is a business. We’ll just see what happens.”
At the moment, Richards’ value is hard to assess because of all the injuries. He is clearly a No. 1 starter, a pitcher Scioscia recently called the “lead dog” of his staff.
Richards knows as well as anyone that he needs to stay healthy to reach the stature in the game that his talent would suggest.
That starts with getting through Thursday’s game. He was hurt in his first start in 2017, on the same mound he’ll be taking for this game.
“Right now,” he said, “it’s all about taking it one day at a time, and making sure I recover and do all the things in between that will make me successful and healthy on Day 5.”
[ad_2]
Source link