Mark Leiter Jr.’s journey actually took a winding path to the mound Sunday at Dodger Stadium.
Leiter’s evolution from a Twenty second-round decide who made 11 begins his rookie 12 months on a 96-loss rebuilding Philadelphia Phillies group to a high-leverage reliever for a Chicago Cubs group eying a postseason look — with Tommy John surgical procedure and a pandemic-prolonged rehab course of in between — is a testomony to the right-hander’s perseverance and flexibility.
Leiter hasn’t allowed a run via seven appearances, wanting dominant within the course of. Entering Monday’s sequence in Oakland, Leiter has’s struck out 12 of the 26 batters he’s confronted this season. His splitter is a nightmare pitch for left-handed hitters, who’re 2-for-18 towards him, and 9 of the lefty’s 10 strikeouts are from it.
Leiter once more shined in an enormous spot throughout Sunday’s 3-2 win. He entered the seventh inning with runners on first and second base because the Cubs held onto a one-run lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Leiter struck out Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy, the latter with the bases loaded following an infield single, to finish the inning.
“There’s something about those guys that are former starters that can handle some moments,” supervisor David Ross stated. “There’s no situation that’s going to come up that they hadn’t been in already in their career. To do it on this stage is obviously a little bit different. He’s trusted his stuff and the plan building off last year and hit the ground running.”
A fired up Leiter strode off the mound after shutting down the Dodgers.
“’Leit Show’ is great — he’s got that energy, that fight in him when he’s on the mound,” third baseman Patrick Wisdom stated. “It’s a lot of fun to play behind him.”
Six weeks in the past, Leiter was not assured a spot within the Cubs bullpen out of spring coaching. He went unclaimed once they designated him for project in January.
“Every year I had to come in and win jobs, so whether I was on the roster, off the roster, guaranteed deal, non-guaranteed deal, my journey has put me in a position to be ready to go and compete as soon as you come in,” Leiter stated just lately to the Tribune.
“It’s just a mentality, like, you’re always proving yourself no matter what. That’s why I kind of laugh at some of the stuff that’s like, oh, you were competing (for a job). Well, you should be competing at all times.”
Leiter might have opted for a route again to the majors on a minor-league take care of one other group after clearing waivers. Instead, an simple enchantment to stay with a Cubs entrance workplace and pitching infrastructure that helped him take the subsequent step in his profession and produce his greatest profession numbers in 2022 made the Chicago the place Leiter wished to be.
“Getting the opportunity to settle into a consistent role last year, it was exciting to get the build off that this winter and really have a direction coming in,” Leiter stated. “This was the recipe for success and these are the couple things that you can improve on or you can add or enhance.”
Bullpen coach Chris Young served because the Phillies assistant pitching coach in 2018 throughout Leiter’s remaining big-league season there. The lack of a transparent position and schedule created some uncertainty at the moment about the kind of pitcher Leiter might turn out to be.
There are not any doubts now how good he could be out of the bullpen, particularly towards lefties.
“He’s got that chip on the shoulder that you respect,” Young informed the Tribune. “That’s just always driven him to prove everybody wrong and he’s done it. You put those two things together, and we get a chance to see what that version looked like last year and he brought it right back.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com