Somehow it took 28 months of nearly daily Card of the Day articles to include a card from the 1990 Upper Deck set. I don’t think he’s far off.All I can say about this article subject today is wow. “He is determined to get back to a point where the game is simple, his delivery is simple,” Kipper said. Until Bard can do that, he’ll be stuck pitching for the Sea Dogs. It’s just repeating that, having that feeling every time out.” I can’t say I had it once the second half of last year. “I’ve had that more often than not this spring. “It’s a feeling more than anything - that feeling of stepping on the mound and saying, ‘This is my game. Bard wants to go into every outing thinking about dominating.
He posted a discouraging 6.75 ERA in eight appearances, but he also struck out 10 and walked four - an improvement after a season in which he walked more hitters than he struck out.īard no longer wants to go into every outing thinking about the mechanics of his delivery. He’s got the makeup and the stuff to do it.”Īs was the case in 2008, Bard came out of spring training this year with a strong belief he already is on his way. “We’re looking forward to not only getting him back to where he was, but getting him even better,” Boles said. Not to become the pitcher he was, but to be even better.” “Maybe we can take his game to an even higher level,” Kipper said. In fact, both Boles and Kipper said they have even higher goals than that. He has three years of dominating performance at the major-league level to draw from that he didn’t have five years ago.”īack then, no one really knew if Bard could be a dominant reliever.Įveryone now knows Bard can be a dominant reliever. Now we’re jumping forward five years, and the baseline is totally different.
#BOB KIPPER FULL#
Back in 20, that was his first full season in professional baseball. “His baseline is totally different - totally different,” Kipper said. To Boles and Kipper, what Bard faces now pales in comparison to what he faced at the start of the 2008 season. He struck out 29 Triple-A hitters in 16 innings the following year - at which point the Red Sox called him up to the major leagues. He struck out 64 Double-A hitters in 492/3 innings. He struck out 43 Single-A hitters in 28 innings. … I remember looking at this arm, like, ‘Oh, boy.’”īy the time Bard got to Greenville for the regular season, he was on the fast track to the major leagues. The rest of his delivery fell into place. In the middle of that outing - “I remember the day like it was yesterday,” Boles said - Bard found middle ground between the high leg kick and the slide step. The resulting inconsistency did little to help him repeat his delivery. Before that, he’d been using a higher leg kick with the bases empty and a shorter leg kick - “a slide step, almost,” he said - when runners reached base.
As had become typical, he’d allowed runners to reach base. Boles then was the Greenville manager, Kipper the Greenville pitching coach.īard was pitching against the Minnesota Twins’ Single-A affiliate. The first indications he was back on track came in an outing for Greenville late in spring training. He was in the home clubhouse at Hadlock Field alongside prospects five years his junior like Matt Barnes and Xander Bogaerts. He wasn’t with the Red Sox in New York on Wednesday. “This sounds like the identical conversation we had back in 2008.”Įverything old is new again for Bard, dispatched to Double-A Portland out of spring training to recapture what had made him one of the best relievers in baseball over a three-year period. “This sounds really familiar,” Kipper said. Rather than thinking about his release point or the movement of his legs, he described to Kipper a focus on maintaining a straight line from the start of his delivery all the way through the ball crossing the plate. It didn’t take long before Bard and his old pitching coach launched into a conversation of the mechanics of Bard’s delivery. PORTLAND, Maine - It was during live batting-practice sessions early in spring training that Bob Kipper ventured into a bullpen on the back fields at JetBlue Park to greet Daniel Bard.
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