PEORIA, Ariz. – It is the Year of the Phenom in Seattle Mariners camp, with young pitchers who represent the future stacked up in the spring clubhouse like firewood.
And then there is Kevin Millwood.
A 37-year-old veteran, Millwood played his first professional season in 1993, and it has not gone unnoticed that teammate Taijuan Walker wasn’t quite a year old at that time.
They are candidates for the same job – starting pitcher. Walker is learning on the fly while Millwood has no trouble remembering what it was like to be the youngest guy in the room.
“I look at all the kids here and I can remember being the kid in camp, though for me it was the opposite situation,” Millwood said, remembering his days with the Atlanta Braves. “We had a veteran staff with only a few rookies.
“We had three Hall of Fame pitchers on the staff, a Hall of Fame manager, a great pitching coach. Yeah, I think I was pretty lucky having all that early. There were a lot of people to approach if I had a question.”
Pitching coach Carl Willis has worked with Millwood before and likes his pedigree.
“You look back, he’s been a staff ace, a guy who broke in with (Atlanta’s) John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux,” Willis said. “He knows a lot about pitching.”
Today, Millwood is the portrait of a journeyman, a man who has played for seven big-league teams. After going 13-10 with a 3.67 ERA in Texas in 2009, the right-hander went 4-16 with a 5.10 ERA in Baltimore a year later.
Last year, he went from the New York Yankees minor league system to the Boston Red Sox minor league system to the Colorado Rockies, where he finished the season 4-3 with a 3.98 ERA.
“I think I proved, given the chance, that I can still pitch,” Millwood said.
Far closer to the end of his career than the middle, Millwood was asked why he didn’t walk away this winter. Why he put in days of running and throwing to stay ready should his chance come.
“I don’t need the money,” he said. “This is what I do, what I love. I still feel I can compete with the best players in the world.”
And that, he said, will bring a man back to compete with pitchers just more than half his age.
“What’s it like on a big-league mound? You’re facing the best players in the world. Players are coming from Cuba, Japan, everywhere now,” he said. “To go out and beat a team with 25 of the best players in the world? That’s pretty cool.”
Seattle manager Eric Wedge had no problem bringing Millwood in to fight for a job. He managed him in Cleveland in 2005.
“He had the ability to slow the game down with a guy at third base and no one out,” Wedge said. “He was the best I’ve ever seen at leaving runners on base.
“He’ll just slow the game down, make his pitch.”
With the Indians, Willis said, Millwood was the abject lesson for youngsters CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Jake Westbrook.
“I was trying to teach them to believe in their fastballs,” Willis said.
“Millwood starts the game and gets the bases loaded with no one out – then gets out of it, using only his fastball. Our kids saw that and understood what I was trying to say.”
Millwood shrugged. If being an example for the Mariners babies this spring helps anyone, he’s delighted. It’s not why he’s here.
“I didn’t come to be an extra coach,” he said. “I’m accessible. I won’t watch someone pitch, then run over and tell them what they’re doing wrong – but I’ll talk to anyone, about anything, any time.”
To get their attention, and win a job, Millwood knows he must pitch well this spring.
“Players watch players. If you’re successful, they see what you’re doing or want to know how you do it, so they can do it too,” Millwood said. “If I get lit up, I doubt anyone is going to come ask me for tips on pitching.”
So he goes through the drills and pitches in the bullpen alongside such kids as Walker, Dan Hultzen, James Paxton, Forrest Snow and Erasmo Ramirez.
Combined, they have zero major league appearances. Millwood has 423 – 415 of them starts.
“I wouldn’t bet against Kevin,” Willis said. “I don’t think he’d be here if he didn’t think he could still pitch.”
larry.larue@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners
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