MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -Glen Perkins is doing precisely what all major league pitchers are taught: staying one step ahead of the hitters by mixing up his pitches and putting them in the right spots.
He’s been scraping the inside corner of the plate with his fastball for strike one, following it with a decent slider that dives in the dirt and an improved changeup to keep opponents guessing.
The roots of the success for this left-hander and early stalwart of Minnesota’s rotation is having, however, can be found off the mound.
They’re on the sun-soaked fields at the Twins’ spring training complex Fort Myers, Fla., where he sharpened his lax workout habits earlier in his career. They’re around the dingy Metrodome, where he talks between starts with pitching coach Rick Anderson and hits the weights with strength and conditioning coach Perry Castellano.
his mannerisms. They make you think, ‘Hey, let’s go get after it a little bit better than that.’
“I think he heard it enough from everybody, that it looked like he was too nonchalant. He’s really changed the way he’s gone about his business. His preparation for everything now is way better. Way better.”
Perkins didn’t argue.
“I think it’s a combination of me maybe doing a little better with it and them realizing the kind of guy that I am,” he said. “Not that I make it look easy, but everyone looks different doing different things.”
Even last season, when he went 12-4 with a 4.41 ERA in 26 starts for the Twins, Perkins sometimes lost focus and “just started throwing” without thinking about it first. But this spring his attention to detail, be it fielding his position, doing squats in the weight room or studying the opposition, has been keen.
It’s no coincidence, then, that he has pitched eight innings in each of his first three appearances, yielding a total of just 16 hits, four walks and four runs for a 1.50 ERA. Scant run support has his record at 1-1, but Perkins became the first Twins pitcher to finish eight innings in three straight starts since the great Johan Santana in June 2005.
Speaking of Santana, Perkins gave pitching coach Rick Anderson a flashback to the departed two-time Cy Young Award winner while they recapped a recent performance.
t they’re trying to do,”’ Anderson said, remembering what Santana told him after a strong start four or five years ago. “I said, ‘Man, that’s when you know you’re a pitcher.’ Perk was telling me the same thing.”
Anderson’s eyes brightened when asked about the difference he’s seen in Perkins, a lifelong Minnesotan. Instead of trying to throw as hard as he can, the 26-year-old is constantly mulling location and letting the ball work for him. Last year, he was drained by the third or fourth inning.
In Sunday’s win over the Los Angeles Angels, Perkins needed only 84 pitches.
“He’d probably be the first to admit when he was young and coming up through college and early in his minor league career, he was a little hotheaded and a little hardheaded more than that,” Anderson said. “But now you look, and he’s maturing as a person and with that he’s maturing as a pitcher. It portrays on the mound. … You couldn’t tell if he’s winning 5-0 or if he’s losing 5-0. He keeps the same demeanor and doesn’t try to do too much.”
Perkins was drafted in the first round in 2004 out of Stillwater High School and keeps a year-round home in the Minneapolis suburb of Lakeville with his wife, Alisha, and toddler daughters Addison and Lyla.
His father, Jeff, noted the normal maturity that develops in most young adults when they reach their mid-20s.
,” his father said.
Perkins is one of the most approachable and thoughtful players on a team that’s typically genial to outsiders. He chattered away with reporters at his cubicle after Sunday’s game, joking about the welt he was sure to have on the side of his leg where a comebacker by Bobby Abreu banged off of him.
He effectively pitched through the pain, evidence of an ability to pitch with aggression without allowing emotion to get the best of him, and looked forward to extra rest this week due to a pair of days off on the Twins’ schedule.
After pitching out of the bullpen and missing more than three months to a muscle strain in his shoulder in 2007, Perkins has reconditioned his mind and body to starting again.
“He makes it look pretty comfortable out there,” Gardenhire said.
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