NewsPelfrey gets impromptu pitching lesson
Hall of Famer Palmer speaks to righty about Tuesday's start
By Anthony DiComo / MLB.com
06/17/09 6:41 PM ET
BALTIMORE -- Greatness dropped in on Mike Pelfrey late Wednesday afternoon for a crash course in pitching. A day after watching Pelfrey struggle at times in a 6-4 win over the Orioles, Hall of Famer Jim Palmer sought out Pelfrey in the visitors' clubhouse at Camden Yards.
 |
Pelfrey was floored. And so he listened closely as Palmer scolded him for throwing a 2-0 changeup to Nick Markakis, arguably Baltimore's most talented hitter, in the sixth.
"He told me to remember what my best pitch is," Pelfrey said, referring to the sinking fastball that he figured Markakis was expecting. If Pelfrey had thrown a sinker down and away, Palmer said, then he would have had little to fear but an opposite-field single -- and with a four-run lead, the Mets hardly would have minded that.
Instead, Pelfrey threw a thigh-high changeup, which Markakis belted for a two-run home run. It's not what Palmer would have done -- and the Hall of Famer made that known the next day.
"The guy's very, very approachable," Pelfrey said. "That's a pretty good guy to come and talk to you. You always try to get insight from other people, and that guy definitely knows what he's talking about. He was pretty good."
Pretty good indeed, even if Pelfrey admitted he didn't know Palmer won 20 or more games eight different times over a 19-year career. Pelfrey, who was born only months before Palmer's final season in the big leagues, could only recall him from the television commercials he did throughout the 1980s and '90s.
"I don't know his stats," Pelfrey said. "I just knew he was really good."
And Pelfrey's been pretty good, too, despite some lapses at times this season. He hopes that the chat session with Palmer will only make him better.
"To have him be that approachable and to be able to talk to him like that, it's pretty cool," Pelfrey said.
Anthony DiComo is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
