CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Derek Shelton misses the old Blake Cederlind.
Well, the old Cederlind look.
"I wish he had the blonde hair back,” Shelton said. “I want him to go back to last spring training. He looks too buttoned-up to me."
Alas, Cederlind is back to brunette and a shorter cut, though he did say the return of those blonde locks is in progress. Growing them out could take a while, he warned.
Perhaps a season in the majors’ worth of time?
Cederlind made his second appearance of the spring Friday in the Pirates’ 3-0 loss to the Phillies in BayCare Ballpark. Even though Andrew McCutchen was able to pull a 98-mph outside sinker over the wall in left, Cederlind showed why he has the stuff to be a force out of the bullpen.
And if you, by some chance, had never seen Cederlind in action before -- or the memes declaring that “Blake Cederlind is pitching” -- it would have taken just the first pitch to show why the 25-year-old son of an almond farmer is electrifying: A 99-mph sinker on the black of the strike zone.
“Throwing 99, 100 with sink and movement ... you just don’t see that often, right?” catcher Joe Hudson would say afterward.
Last spring marked Cederlind’s first in major-league camp. He then spent most of the season at the alternate training site in Altoona after testing positive for COVID-19 before reaching summer camp, but did make five appearances in the majors.
Shelton has said multiple times this spring that he doesn’t have a closer in place yet. It may be a little early to put Cederlind in that discussion, but it seems almost certain that he will get leverage innings out of the bullpen this year.
“I’m not so much worried about a role right now,” Cederlind said. “I’m just competing for a job. I’ve got both my pitches honed in for this year, just gonna put them to the test and leave the decisions up to the decision makers.”
Don’t be mistaken, though. Being a closer in the majors is the dream for Cederlind. He’s had a good mentor to learn: Joel Hanrahan. Hanrahan has coached at each stop Cederlind made from 2017-2019, and was the pitching coach at the alternate site last year.
When I talked to Cederlind while he was at the alternate site last year, he told the story about how he joked to Hanrahan that he threw harder than Hanrahan ever did. Hanrahan quipped back that he’d been to more All-Star Games. It was a playful, but effective shutdown. Cederlind could be better, but he wasn’t yet.
Hanrahan knows what it takes to succeed in the majors, and what’s different between pitching there and the minors.
“There’s no real difference,” Cederlind said about what Hanrahan told him. “Just keeping the same mentality I had in the minor leagues, just bringing it into big-league games as well. Same game, just a different environment.”
Between Cederlind’s power sinker and breaking pitch, which he says is more of a slider than a cutter now that he added more downward bite to it this offseason, it’s easy to see how he could close. But two things could keep him from that role. The first is internal competition. The Pirates have been stockpiling arms, and guys like David Bednar and Nick Mears are also throwing in the upper-90s already with plus secondary pitches. The group is raw, but it has the makings to be a potentially lethal backend of the bullpen in the future.
“Taking a look down the line, like you said, I think any guy is fit for the job,” Cederlind said. “We’re just going to go out there and compete and see what happens.”
The other, and more pressing, is control. Cederlind has had walk problems in the past, and pitch efficiency was part of the reason he went from starter to reliever while in the minors.
“All we need for ‘Ceeds’ to know is put the ball on the plate, throw strikes,” Shelton said. “If they beat you because you’re throwing strikes, that’s fine. But don’t put him in a position where he’s beating himself by putting guys on base. That’s the biggest message. It’s a consistent message for a lot of young kids, but with his stuff and the velo, it’s extremely important.”
Cederlind doesn’t see control as being as much of a problem for himself anymore, however.
“In the minors, I went through a little bit of struggle finding the plate, but since I’ve cleaned up my mechanics, I’m much more efficient and I can fill up the zone when I need to,” Cederlind said.
If he can do that and let his stuff play, Cederlind will be on the path to that closer job. For now, he’ll bring the intensity and those triple-digit heaters wherever he goes.
“I think the mentality is the same,” Cederlind said. “Whether it’s the fourth or the ninth, just coming in, treating the fourth like it’s the ninth [and] just being locked in throughout the game.”
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Chad Kuhl allowed two runs in two innings and 26 pitches, with his fastball velocity sitting consistently at 93-94 mph.
He gave up an opposite field home run to Bryce Harper in the first on what he called his "fourth-best" pitch -- the two-seamer. He and Oscar Marin have been working to try to get that pitch back to how it felt from 2016-18, before his Tommy John surgery. That includes experimenting with the pressure and grip and throwing it from 90-feet everyday.
"It’s just getting comfortable with where I'm at in my delivery to make that a consistent pitch," Kuhl said. "That starts with my throwing program — just throwing it more, throwing it at a greater distance, really getting a release point out front. Oscar’s really helped me get that back."
Kuhl says it's a confidence thing for him. He wants to know he can throw it in key situations.
"It's just seeing feedback like that and being around the zone, being in a good spot with it," Kuhl said. "It gives you that instant feedback that you're looking for.
• Wil Crowe, another pitcher in the starter mix, also went two innings for the first time this spring Friday.
He was slider-heavy, throwing it 12 times, more than any of his other offerings in his 30 pitch outing. That includes throwing it for the first pitch in five of his eight batters faced. Crowe wants to up its usage and use it not just as a pitch to get outs, but that he can steal an early strike with.
It's one of the new ideas he's adopting after working with Marin. He also is focusing more on tunneling and making sure his pitches play off each other more.
"He knows to talk down the analytical stuff where it's not too hard to understand when you're new to it, so it doesn't sound so foreign," Crowe said. "He's able to [convey], 'this is what you need to do. This is what the data's telling us. Let's go from here and see what we've got.' He makes it really easy for us to understand and go about what we're trying to get done."
• No offense to speak of from the Pirates Friday. Wilmer Difo and Travis Swaggerty provided the only hits, both singles. They were also the only Pirates to record a batted ball of at least 100 mph, and the Phillies struck out 13 in the nine-inning contest.
• Edgar Santana made his first appearance in a game, tossing a nine-pitch 1-2-3 inning. His sinker was consistently 93 mph. After missing the 2019 season recovering from Tommy John surgery and last year after testing positive for PEDs, he needs to make a good impression this spring to make the team.
• Shortstop Liover Peguero has finally reported to Pirate City after experiencing visa issues. In case you missed it, Peguero and I talked on the phone earlier this week about his frustrations being out of the country, what it means for him this spring training and what he worked on this offseason. You can read that here.
• The Pirates will play host to the Yankees at LECOM Park Saturday. First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m., though there is a chance at rain. Jameson Taillon will get the start for New York. Mitch Keller was scheduled to make his second start of the spring, but will instead throw a live batting practice because of the weather. Cody Ponce will start instead, followed by Nick Mears, Carson Fulmer, Shea Spitzbarth, Braeden Ogle and Geoff Hartlieb.
