Kovacevic: Happ 'just wanted to be part of this'

ST. LOUIS -- Looking back now on the Pirates' previous visit here, they might as well have stashed J.A. Happ in the equipment trunk.

He was the dog-eared book discarded after the first chapter.

The toy from the bargain bin that the kid tried once, then tossed under the couch.

It was a month ago Friday, actually, that Happ took the mound against the Cubs at PNC Park, to the anticipation of approximately no one. He'd just been acquired from the Mariners at the trade deadline at the same time the Royals and Dodgers and Mets and all the teams that truly care about winning paid higher prices for their bona fide Buzz Lightyears. Fans were furious. Media were no different.

One wag who shall go almost unnamed called the trade 'garbage.'



And by the time Happ left that mound, four runs and 4 1/3 innings the poorer for it, the catcalls and criticism only mounted.

That was a month ago Friday.

And on this Friday, the one in which the Pirates returned to Busch and crushed the Cardinals, 9-3, Happ left this mound to the stunned silence of the sellout crowd, zero runs and seven innings the richer for it.

"You know, that felt good," Happ would tell me much later in the evening. "It did."

Not just the pitching, he quickly clarified.

'It was disappointing ... frustrating'

No, this lanky 32-year-old lefty who has become nothing less than the Pirates' brightest light in this last little stretch focused instead on what led to it: Right after that debut against the Cubs, the Pirates rearranged their rotation to push him back just far enough so he wouldn't start against the Cardinals, the team they were chasing then as now. It was blatantly obvious what was happening, but the series was just too big and Happ just too bad to risk it.

The taste it left apparently was bad, too.

"I'm not going to lie: What happened the last time we were here ... it was disappointing. It was frustrating," Happ continued. "When I first came over, I was so excited. I looked at all the talent that was in here, all the camaraderie, and I just wanted to be a part of this right away."

Instead ...

"Yeah, you're just kind of ... I don't know. I didn't know these personalities in here. I didn't know what they thought of me. I didn't know if they felt I could help them."

Well, I can answer that one. More than a few were skeptical. And there's no shame in that. Players are driven to win, above all, especially players on successful teams. All they knew about Happ was what the rest of us knew.

He decided at that point, as he recalled, not to react emotionally.

"In the past, I've had a tendency to get down. They tell you in baseball that even-keel is best, and they're right, but I wouldn't really take the highs the same way I would the lows. That's something I've had to work on."

The highs came right off the bat. In 2007, he broke into the bigs with the then-mighty Phillies and looked like he'd fit right in: 12-4 with a 2.93 ERA and 119 strikeouts. But upon being traded to the Astros, he regressed somewhat for two seasons and, after moving on to the Blue Jays and Mariners, never produced another full-season ERA lower than 4.20.

By the time the Pirates were about to come calling in July, Seattle had relegated him to relief. And the day before the Pirates acquired him -- for a mid-level pitching prospect Adrian Sampson -- all Happ did was concede a touchdown to the Twins over 3 1/3 innings.

What could Huntington possibly have been thinking?

"To us, what happened at the end there didn't matter," the GM told me on this trip. "We've liked J.A. for a long time now. Our guys believed in him, and they liked when we had an opportunity to make a move for him."

This, you should know, is very much par for the Huntington course. He isn't perfect at his job, but he's set up an internal system of checks and cross-checks around the majors, as well as what might be one of the best set of scouts in that capacity -- to establish lists of players they might someday target, particularly if their value ever diminishes and they can be had for less than premium cost.

Want three examples?

How about Russell Martin, A.J. Burnett and Francisco Cervelli?

Huntington had one other certainty in the Happ equation: He'd have Ray Searage.

"We never underestimate or underappreciate what Ray brings to us," the GM said.

Turned out that was the best call of all.

'He really cares, and I could see that'

Almost every pitching success story in Pittsburgh begins and ends with Searage. Even when he doesn't want it to.

Searage swore to me after Happ's re-debut in New York -- 5 1/3 innings, one run -- that he didn't change a thing mechanically.

"Ray's too humble," Huntington said.

"Ray had a lot to do with it," Happ said.

That began with a bullpen session here in St. Louis during that disappointing time for Happ, and it continued with a detailed film study of Happ's strong April in Seattle. It was there that the coach discovered a weight-balance shifting that wasn't allowing Happ to stay consistent for extended periods.

Coming clean at least a little, Searage confessed to this much tinkering: "You are the pitcher that you are. J.A. has been a good big-league pitcher for long stretches. We don't want to reinvent him or anyone. We just want him to be what he is when he's going well."

Clint Hurdle, who strongly supported the call to hit the reset button with Happ, stressed the same message. And he reiterated after this game that messages often are better received when they come from new sources.

"Sometimes a change of scenery can give a guy a shot in the arm," Hurdle said. "You don't want to be a weak link and you re-acquire your focus knowing you're being counted on. He's showed up well."

Happ acknowledged sometimes resisting change in the past, but he learned something else during that initial visit to Busch that prodded him.

"I was in the dugout one night, and I was just watching Ray, trying to get to know him, see who he is," Happ said. "And the one thing you notice more than anything is how much he cares. He watches his pitchers like a parent would. He wants what's best for you."

Happ smiled a bit.

"How do you not buy what a guy like that is selling?"

'Dial-A-Pitch'

Happ is pitching very well since that debut, to put it mildly ...



Add up those five starts, and he's allowed two earned runs in 30 innings. And by not allowing more than a run over five straight starts, he's matched a feat only Zach Duke (2005) and John Candelaria (1982) have achieved for the Pirates in the divisional era.

Hey, if you want to play deadline-winners-and-losers more than five actual minutes after the deadline passes, he's been better than any of the big-name commodities that changed hands at the deadline, even David Price and Johnny Cueto.

He was never better than on this night, coolly, almost casually deploying all four offerings to spread out 110 pitches, 72 strikes, three hits -- all singles -- and eight strikeouts against zero walks.

From the second inning to the seventh, he retired 15 Cardinals in a row.

St. Louis manager Mike Matheny didn't even bother trying to explain it from the home perspective: "Happ was doing whatever he wanted. He was on. That's all there really was to it."

Jared Hughes, who followed Happ on this night, called what the starter was doing "Dial-A-Pitch," meaning, "Catcher's finger goes down, ball goes right where you want it."

He and others cited the sizzling sequence on Happ's final batter, Yadier Molina: Cervelli called for a curve just to throw off his counterpart's timing, then raised his glove high as Molina swung through the 'Dottie Hinson fastball.'

I asked Happ during his media session what the pinpoint fastball meant, in general:

http://youtu.be/ojJd1eEAXpo

I later asked Happ about the Molina at-bat.

"Ha! Well, give my catcher the credit for that. He knew what to do with their swings, their tendencies. I just followed his lead, and he kept moving their swings all over the place."

Almost sounds like someone was toying with them.