Tucson – He’s not as effective an interrogator or as stunning in a party dress as Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson, but he throws better.
Brian Fuentes is The Closer.
Fuentes’ arm motion seems more appropriate for someone sailing a Frisbee, flipping a pancake, swatting a gnat or wiping spaghetti off his chin.
But left-handed hitters would rather face William Tell’s arrows or hear his overture.
The first time Fuentes, a lefty, pitched to Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard, a lefty, he opened with a “a breaking ball outside.” Howard missed by a foot. Fuentes twisted another slider farther outside. Howard missed by two feet. The third time, Fuentes almost threw the ball into the visiting dugout. Howard missed.
Howard said last season: “When I see (Fuentes) again, I’m gonna bat right-handed.” All Howard did was win the National League MVP in 2006.
On Wednesday afternoon Fuentes worked the sixth inning of an exhibition against Milwaukee and had center-fielder Laynce Nix on his tiptoes with sliders matching the temperature (high 80s), then nixed him with a changeup.
Fuentes is The Closer of the Rockies.
In eight minor-league seasons, Fuentes started 91 games. In six major-league seasons, he has started 0 games.
“I used to think the bullpen was where starters went to die,” Fuentes said Wednesday.
Is this heaven?
No, this is Rockies spring training.
“I got a second life as a reliever,” said Fuentes, a National League all-star the past two years, a member of the U.S. team in the World Baseball Classic last March, a pitcher on the American club that toured Japan last November and now a veteran, reliable, feared closer. He’s recorded 61 saves and just nine blown saves in the past two years … for a team that needed being saved.
“One year I kept (Fuentes) just to keep him. He struggled in the spring. I told the coaches they would have to bite it. I wasn’t going to let him go,” manager Clint Hurdle said.
Hurdle calls Fuentes “T-Rex” because of his short-arm, dinosaur-like conveyance system that seems to belong in Jurassic Park, not at Coors Field. T-Rex because he gnaws on batters, spits them out.
“I’m comfortable with him as our closer because of his preparation, his focus, the confidence his teammates have in him, his mettle, his ability to get out of trouble. He doesn’t rattle,” Hurdle said. “And he’s got that funky delivery.”
Fuentes was rattling around as a starter in the Seattle Mariners’ farm system from 1996-2001 without one winning season. The Mariners told him to stop pitching overhanded and made him a reliever. He was briefly promoted to the Mariners and won a game – against Colorado.
Figures.
Then he was traded to the Rockies for Jeff Cirillo, a “throw-in” with Jose Paniagua and Denny Stark, both of whom are out of baseball.
Fuentes was thrilled to be anywhere in the majors, even in Denver, where starters and relievers go to die. “I wanted an opportunity to pitch, and I didn’t care what the altitude was,” he said.
The 31-year-old native of Merced, Calif., has never started a game in the majors, but he became a serviceable reliever for the Rox in 2002, then a setup man, then a disabled-list casualty, then a late-inning, left-handed specialist once more, then, in May 2005, a full-time closer.
He was the lone Rockies player in the All-Star Game. Fuentes repeated last season, shortly after he and wife Barbara adopted an infant son, Giavonni.
“My long-term goal is to play long enough so that my son can come to the games and the clubhouse,” Fuentes said. “I know how much it meant to me when I got to hang out with my dad at his softball games. You know, this game has got to be fun. I carry that on the field and bring it back to the dugout.”
Fun for him, nasty for hitters.
And possibly real fun for him after this season. If Fuentes, in the second of a two- year, $5.5 million contact, can duplicate the past two seasons, he probably would command $7 mil to $8 mil a year at the arbitration table, unless the Rockies act sometime before or decide to let him leave.
“I’m willing to listen to (management) about an extension, but I’m not going to think about it once this year. That’s out of my hands,” he said. Just like that 72-mile- per-hour floater of a changeup that corkscrews opponents into the dirt.
Fuentes struck out three White Sox in his first (one-inning) spring appearance, missed a turn with a stiff back and added two more whiffs Wednesday.
He is two innings away from 300 innings in the majors, eight K’s from 350.
Fuentes is The Closer, and he is striking.
Staff writer Woody Paige can be reached at 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com.
