Dana Eveland is in no position to take anything for granted but, really, what the hell was he supposed to do Saturday night against an opponent committed to playing into his hands?
So Eveland just keep flipping in changeup after changeup to the Baltimore Orioles. Simple. There will not likely be too many gifts like this for a guy whose career has wobbled in recent years. So, there's no point in analyzing things.
"When you have a team that is chasing a pitch, you just try to keep going with it until they show you they can make the adjustment," said Toronto Blue Jays catcher Jose Molina, after Eveland tossed 7 1/3 scoreless innings in a 3-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles. "The Orioles didn't do that. That's why we took advantage of it. We'll save those other pitches for other games."
The Blue Jays are 4-1 to start the year and they'll go for the series sweep Sunday afternoon at Orioles Park with their Opening Day starter, Shaun Marcum, on the mound. One complete turn through the rotation and the Blue Jays have had four of five quality starts.
Eveland, who pitched himself into the rotation in spring training, gave up five hits, striking out two and walking two. Molina picked up a run batted in in the fourth inning when Orioles starter David Hernandez hit him with a pitch after intentionally walking Travis Snider to load the bases. Molina also had a run-scoring single in the fifth while Adam Lind roped a double off the wall in right in the ninth to bring in the Blue Jays' third run.
It was a quick, tidy, two-hour, 24-minute game with umpire Joe West - the man who ripped the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for dawdling during their games last week - behind home plate.
"It was one of the weirdest games I've ever pitched in, stuff-wise," said Eveland, who certainly does like to talk. "I was fastball/changeup all day and I'm a guy - all my career - who's been 40-per-cent breaking balls in a game.
"I threw, maybe, five or six breaking balls today. Just had a good change - down in the zone, with a little sink to it. [The Orioles]were beating it into the ground or popping it up. I got a lot of soft contact with it.
"It's not my favourite pitch," Eveland added. "I mean, I won't shake [shake off the catcher]to a changeup, but Jose was right on. He knew these hitters … so I just went with it."
So is the changeup here to stay? Eveland paused.
"We'll see how it looks next time," he said.
Molina, who was hitless in three at bats and behind the plate for three wild pitches in his only start after hitting .161 (5-for-31) in the Grapefruit League, was given the start last night because Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston wanted to use John Buck in Sunday afternoon's game against Kevin Millwood, against whom Buck is 7-for-16 (.438.)
"I was going to use each of them in these two games," Gaston said, shrugging.
Molina noticed something when he caught Eveland's warmup. The changeup was sharp. "You adjust during the course of the game," said Molina, who became A.J. Burnett's personal catcher last year with the New York Yankees. "But the way I saw him warming up and the way he was throwing the ball, I thought we'd go with [the changeup]at the start."
"They were really aggressive trying to get that first pitch heater," said Eveland, "and when I started flipping in some first-pitch changes, they kept hitting it off the end of the bat."
How much did he throw the changeup?
"A ton," said Eveland, who added that bullpen coach Rick Langford has been "pumping it into my brain" - the virtues of the change-up. A seminal moment in the process occurred late in spring training when Molina caught Eveland in the bullpen at Dunedin and then spent a good few minutes huddled with the pitcher and Langford and pitching coach Bruce Walton,
The Blue Jays have been lucky in recent years with catchers that have not been highly-touted - which has allowed prospect J.P. Arencibia time to mature in the minors. Gregg Zaun has the gift of the gab but let's give the devil his due: he took advantage of the Blue Jays' offer to pull him off the scrap heap and he's managed to cash some extra pay-cheques because of it. Rod Barajas, meanwhile, gave the Blue Jays more mileage than anybody had a right to expect when he was here. J.P. Ricciardi's bargain basement shopping didn't always work out, but he lucked out a bit in catchers.
Both Molina and Buck have had early-season issues behind the plate. Neither will likely supply the surprising pop of Barajas. But if Molina can work with a guy like Burnett and collect a World Series ring in the process, you'd have to think he has some value.
"Jose's a good communicator," said Eveland. "He has a way of saying something quick that pops into your brain - something you may not be feeling. Maybe only a minor adjustment - but something that gets you back into things."