From cleaning dog butts to the World Series: Meet MLB’s oldest — and most interesting — pitching coach
-
Jesse Rogers, ESPN Staff Writer
LESS THAN FOUR months after the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ postseason run ended with a World Series loss to the Texas Rangers, baseball’s oldest pitching coach is back in his comfort zone, instructing his pitching staff as he walks the backfields of spring training.
His body might someday tell him it has had enough, but that time hasn’t yet arrived for 75-year-old Brent Strom, and with a freshly signed two-year contract, his entire focus is on getting the D-backs one step further than the team went in November.
“I’ve been conditioned to lose the World Series,” Strom said between Brandon Pfaadt pitches during live batting practice one recent morning. “I’ve lost three of them. All three on our home field. Watching the other team celebrate on our home field is doubly painful.
“I’m like the Buffalo Bills.”
Though Strom is now 1-3 in World Series appearances — having previously made three trips with the Houston Astros — there is little doubt that Arizona’s playoff magic would have run out earlier than it did without his deft touch in handling such an inexperienced group.
The Diamondbacks were powered by stellar performances from starters Pfaadt, Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen, along with a parade of unheralded relievers, including Ryan Thompson, Kevin Ginkel and Andrew Saalfrank, silencing the powerful bats of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies on their way to the National League pennant. But the pain of falling short on the sport’s biggest stage yet again kept Strom from reveling in his fourth World Series in seven years.
“It’s imperative that we realize there was some luck involved last year and we got hot at the right time,” he said. “I don’t want this to be a one-and-out type of thing.”
Using that as motivation, Strom immediately turned his focus to 2024, skipping his annual offseason trip to Europe in favor of working at a baseball clinic in Cuba and setting up Zoom calls with his pitchers to find new ways to come back even better this season.
“I’ve always gone with the idea of trial and error,” Strom said. “If it doesn’t work, we try something different. You need an open mindset and a highly competitive nature. Heard that from Tom Brady. You have to keep evolving.”
Aside from a rare mound visit gone wrong — like the one that saw Corey Seager hit a World Series Game 3 home run that helped Texas take control of the series — nowhere is Strom’s mentality on display more than when he strides out to the mound to calm a pitcher in the most anxious moments of a game, regular or postseason.
“He’s very direct,” Pfaadt said. “He’s very firm. Sometimes he’ll come out there and give you a nice squeeze on the arm, let you know it’s not a dream. He’ll say ‘I want you to do this’ and usually if you execute then you have success.”
FOUR DECADES BEFORE he was making World Series mound visits, Strom was coaching in the Dodgers system when conversations with Sandy Koufax helped crystallize the overriding principle that has shaped his career: A rising fastball is better than any sinker, even as the latter pitch was spreading across the sport.
“Koufax made me realize all we are, are controlled throwers,” Strom said. “We’re not pitchers. The best way to ruin a pitcher is to make him a pitcher. … If I get an 18-year-old Koufax, an 18-year-old [Dwight] Gooden and an 18-year-old Bob Feller, you want me to teach them sinkers? They’re born doing f—ing this.” He shot his hand out to indicate a fastball.
“As Koufax once said, do you know who throws sinkers? People that can’t throw fastballs.”
But not everyone was ready for Strom’s forward-thinking philosophy. Between 1996 and 2005, he made stops with the Astros, Kansas City Royals, San Diego Padres and Montreal Expos before finding himself completely out of the game.
Without a baseball job, Strom helped his wife open a dog grooming business in Tucson, Arizona — he had gone from discussing pitching with the best left-hander in MLB history to caring for pets.
“I was cleaning dingleberries. … That was my job,” Strom said. “I was washing dogs.”
But soon after, then-St. Louis Cardinals executive Jeff Luhnow gave Strom a chance to work with the Cardinals’ minor league pitchers — but only their minor leaguers, according to the coach. Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan had all of the say when it came to pitchers already playing in St. Louis, and they weren’t looking for differing philosophies. Duncan preached sinkers — Strom believed in rising four-seamers.
“I was not received very well by La Russa or Duncan,” Strom said. “If it was up to them, I would have been fired after a year. In fact, they told me I was only allowed to work with the kids in the Dominican or Low-A, no one higher.”
“[In one meeting] they asked if anyone knows the batting average on ground balls compared to fly balls,” he said. “The comment was made that ground balls are .233 and fly balls are .407. So I raised my hand and said, ‘Is a line drive considered a fly ball?’ They said yes. I said, ‘That’s bulls—.’ A line drive is .700. A real fly ball is .233 and a ground ball is .231.
“I got over my skis a little bit on that one.”
Though the Cardinals went in another direction after run-ins like that, Luhnow continued to believe in Strom’s message — and upon getting the GM job in Houston, he hired the then 64-year-old as the Astros’ pitching coach.
With Strom guiding one of MLB’s top pitching staffs, the Astros won the World Series in 2017 and became a perennial playoff team. But after losing in the World Series in 2021, he decided it was time to move on.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself,” Strom said. “Heaviest is the head that wears the crown. Winning in Houston became expected. I was living and dying by the whole thing.”
That’s when the Diamondbacks called, offering an appealing opportunity: a new challenge, closer to home and a chance to bring his philosophy to a new group of pitchers.
“Brent Strom brought a new glossary, a new pitching glossary,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “And he’s the architect of what we do every single day on the mound.
“There’s a fire in his belly, at 70-plus years old, that I hope we all have. The language changed immediately. The focus as to what we needed to do, pitch to pitch, batter to batter and game to game changed instantly.”
Asked what Lovullo meant by a language change, Strom reeled off a few of his favorite terms: “Top-shelf cutters. Elevated fastballs. Stay out of the honey hole.”
These were more than just buzzwords; Strom brought a philosophy that resonated with a younger group of pitchers eager to experience big league success.
“Three things impact the outcome of the game most,” Strom explained. “Win the battle of three: Throw two of the first three pitches for strikes. Secondly, eliminate or shut down the amount of hard-hit balls. And create chases. Get hitters to chase at balls.”
His pitchers nod their heads when reminded of Strom’s intense but caring attitude and point to his tireless work ethic as key to gaining their trust. Strom is seemingly always thinking about pitching, sending a middle-of-the-night message to reliever Joe Mantiply while vacationing in Europe and a Christmas Eve note to Merrill Kelly with some holiday reading material about hitters’ numbers against him on a certain pitch.
“I haven’t been around a pitching coach that works as hard as he does,” Mantiply said. “It’s nothing to get a text or email at 3 in the morning. He’s always looking for ways to get better. I don’t know if he sleeps.”
THE OCTOBER SUCCESS of Arizona and Houston under Strom has been a victory for the style he has spent so much of his career spreading. The D-backs, like the Astros before them, dominated the top of the zone last postseason.
“For my whole career, I was told [because] I don’t have velocity … make sure you throw the ball down and away, and then we realized that if you throw the ball up in the zone it’s going to work a lot better,” Arizona closer Paul Sewald said. “He’s a huge proponent of rising fastballs and sweeping sliders.”
Strom’s guidance isn’t without hiccups — Madison Bumgarner was released last year after posting a 10.26 ERA. And there’s the occasional salty moment, according to Diamondbacks pitching strategist and former major league pitcher Dan Haren.
“I can sense how things are going during a game to whether I’m going to get a text or call afterwards,” Haren said. “He’s really emotional. I’m OK with being the punching bag and then giving back info in a way we can all get better and grow from it.
“And he can be funny.”
That sense of humor perhaps was never more apparent than in Strom’s most memorable mound visit. In a game at Yankee Stadium while working for the Royals, he went to the mound to talk with pitcher Dan Reichert.
“He walked two guys in a row on eight pitches,” Strom recalled. “I didn’t know what to say to him, we need to get [Jorge] Posada out. I said, ‘Dan, you have to get him out fast.’ And he said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because I have to take a s—.’ He started laughing. The catcher started laughing. I knew I had him right there. He said three or less pitches. I said make it two or less. I turned around and in front of 50,000 fans … I waddled off the mound.
“And the SOB threw a sinker for a double play. Probably my greatest mound visit ever.”
The master of mound visits, indeed. Preparing for another season of them isn’t easy but Strom is committed to 2024 and he’s still happy doing what he’s doing.
“The body will accommodate the goal that’s required,” Strom said, seemingly referring to himself as much as his pitchers. “I don’t know how much further I want to do this but there is some unfinished business here. That’s why I came back.”
-
Jorge Castillo
ATLANTA — The 2025 MLB All-Star Game featured the two best pitchers in the world on the mound to start for their respective leagues and the two best position players in the opposing lineups. It included the first automatic ball-strike system challenges in All-Star Game history, a rousing six-run comeback, a memorable appearance for a future first-ballot Hall of Famer and a beautiful tribute to the late Hank Aaron just miles from where he surpassed Babe Ruth on the career home run list.
But the exhibition, a remarkable show played at Truist Park on a muggy Tuesday night, will be remembered for how it ended.
When it was over, nearly four hours after the first pitch, the National League outlasted the American League behind Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber in an unprecedented Home Run Derby-style swing-off, with a 4-3 homer edge after the score was tied at 6-6 through nine innings.
Schwarber pulverized three home runs on three swings in the swing-off after going 0-for-2 with a walk during the nine innings, becoming the first position player to win All-Star Game MVP without recording a hit in the game.
The American League leads the National League in the All-Star Game, with a record of 48 wins, 44 losses and 2 ties.
Officially, the result, just the Senior Circuit’s second victory in the past 12 matchups, didn’t have a winning or losing pitcher of record. Unofficially, it was one of the most enthralling endings to any marquee baseball game, exhibition or not.
“It’s like wiffle ball in the backyard,” AL manager Aaron Boone said.
The tiebreaker, a baseball version of a hockey shootout, was established in 2022. On Monday, both managers — Boone and the NL’s Dave Roberts — were required to submit their list of participants and alternates to MLB should the game need the swing-off after nine innings. Knowing starters usually shower and leave the ballpark well before the end of the game, the managers opted for reserves.
The exercise again appeared to be unnecessary once the NL took a 6-0 lead — fueled by New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso‘s three-run homer — into the seventh inning. But the AL scored four runs in the seventh and tied the game when down to its last out in the ninth to send the 95th All-Star Game to the swing-off.
“Dave asked yesterday, ‘If there’s a tie, would you do it?'” said Schwarber, the only member of the Phillies who participated in this year’s All-Star festivities. “I said, ‘Absolutely,’ not thinking that we were going to end up in a tie when you say yes. And then as the game’s going, you’re looking at the score, you’re not really thinking the game’s going to end in a tie.”
But even that process prompted brief confusion. Roberts originally selected Schwarber, Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suarez and Alonso, a two-time Home Run Derby champion. But Suarez, who was hit on his left hand by a pitch in the eighth inning, was scratched after being announced and replaced by Miami Marlins outfielder Kyle Stowers.
Boone countered with Athletics designated hitter Brent Rooker, Seattle Mariners outfielder Randy Arozarena and Tampa Bay Rays first baseman Jonathan Aranda.
Los Angeles Dodgers third-base coach Dino Ebel threw for the NL. New York Yankees first-base coach Travis Chapman assumed the pressure-packed duty for the AL.
Finally, the rules: Each player was granted three swings and an unlimited number of pitches to take them.
Rooker, the only participant to also take part in Monday’s Home Run Derby, led off with two homers. Stowers followed with one. Arozarena then extended the AL’s lead to 3-1, setting the stage for Schwarber.
Schwarber, a man seemingly built to smash baseballs over the wall, has never won a Home Run Derby. He lost in the finals in 2018 and failed to advance out of the first round in 2022; he hasn’t entered another one since. On Tuesday, however, he did not falter.
The three-time All-Star, after building some drama with a delayed emergence from the NL dugout, crushed three home runs, drawing louder and louder reactions with each one. The first was a 428-foot laser that traveled 107 mph to straightaway center. Next, he cracked a 461-foot, 109 mph moon shot to right field. He finished the spree with a 382-foot dinger, dropping down to one knee as the ball soared into the right-field seats and eliciting a rambunctious reaction from his temporary teammates.
“I think the first swing was kind of the big one,” Schwarber said. “I was just really trying to hit a line drive versus trying to hit the home run. Usually, that tends to work out, especially in games.”
The pressure shifted to Aranda. Needing one homer to tie, Aranda lifted a fly ball to the warning track before clanking a ball off the top of the brick wall in right field. His last swing produced a weak fly ball to left field, giving the NL the win at eight minutes to midnight.
“First time in history we got to do this,” Roberts said, “and I think it played pretty well tonight.”
By then, the early talk of the night was old news.
This year’s exhibition was the first game at the major league level outside of spring training to feature the automated ball-strike system, an expected precursor to MLB implementing the arrangement for all games beginning next season.
The rules on Tuesday were the same as the ABS challenge rules introduced during spring training. Each team received two challenges for the game. Only the pitcher, catcher or batter could request a challenge, and the request needed to be immediate without help from the dugout or other players on the field.
Five pitches were challenged Tuesday. The first was an 0-2 changeup that AL starter Tarik Skubal threw to San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado that plate umpire Dan Iassogna called a ball in the first inning. Skubal and his catcher, Cal Raleigh of the Mariners, didn’t agree and challenged the pitch to make history. The call was overturned, ending Machado’s at-bat with a strikeout.
“I wasn’t even going to use them,” Skubal said. “But I felt like that was a strike, and you want that in an 0-2 count.”
Skubal became the first Detroit Tigers pitcher to start an All-Star Game since Max Scherzer in 2013. Opposite him was the other Cy Young favorite.
A year after starting the All-Star Game for the NL with 11 career outings on his résumé, Pittsburgh Pirates sensation Paul Skenes received the nod again to become the 10th pitcher to start consecutive All-Star Games and the first to accomplish the feat in his first two seasons. Last year, in Texas, Skenes walked one batter in his scoreless inning, a blip that he said “pissed me off” and pushed him to attack hitters for his All-Star Game encore.
“I was throwing every pitch as hard as I could,” Skenes said, “hoping that it landed in the strike zone.”
The result: two strikeouts on 100 mph fastballs to Tigers teammates Gleyber Torres and Riley Greene to open the contest. Skenes admittedly reached back seeking to strike out the side, but Yankees slugger Aaron Judge grounded out on another 100 mph pitch to conclude Skenes’ night.
“That’s what the All-Star Game’s for,” Skenes said. “Every hitter’s trying to hit a home run. We’re trying to strike everybody out.”
In a fitting transition, 11-time All-Star Clayton Kershaw relieved Skenes, 14 years his junior, in the second inning.
Raleigh, Tuesday’s Home Run Derby champion, welcomed the Dodgers’ Kershaw with a 101.9 mph line drive that Chicago Cubs left-fielder Kyle Tucker snagged with a sliding catch. Kershaw then struck out the Toronto Blue Jays‘ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. looking at an 87 mph slider on his sixth pitch, prompting Roberts to emerge from the NL dugout to take the ball from Kershaw and end what could have been the final All-Star Game appearance of his Hall of Fame career.
A legend selection for the game by commissioner Rob Manfred, Kershaw delivered a pregame speech in the NL clubhouse.
“We have the best All-Star Game of any sport,” said Kershaw, who on July 2 became the 20th pitcher to record 3,000 career strikeouts. “We do have the best product. So to be here, to realize your responsibility in the sport, is important. And we have Shohei [Ohtani] here. We have Aaron Judge here. We have all these guys that represent the game really, really well, so we get to showcase that and be part of that is important. I just said I was super honored to be a part of it.”
In the end, Kershaw was part of something never seen before.
ATLANTA — Clutching the glass bat given to the All-Star Game MVP, Kyle Schwarber walked through the National League clubhouse and chuckled to himself: He had just won the award without registering a single hit in the game.
“One good BP wins you a trophy these days,” Schwarber said.
What happened Tuesday night at the All-Star Game was unlike anything in the 94 versions that preceded it. Thanks to a rule change three years ago, baseball unveiled its version of penalty kicks in soccer or a shootout in hockey: Break a tie after nine innings via a Home Run Derby-style swing-off. And there was perhaps no one on the planet better to meet the moment than Schwarber, the Philadelphia Phillies slugger, who homered on all three of his swings in the impromptu batting practice session to propel the NL to the win (6-6, with a 4-3 edge in homers) in the Midsummer Classic.
For an All-Star Game that has grown relatively stale in recent years, larded with pitching changes and substitutions, the swing-off lent it an air of freshness and excitement. Amid all of the oddities — Atlanta Braves fans at a sold-out Truist Park cheering on a star from their hated rival, New York Mets players urging on Schwarber, all of it against the backdrop of the NL blowing a 6-0 lead — the one constant was Schwarber playing hero at a time of import.
As the American League blitzed back from a half-dozen-run deficit, the possibility of the swing-off was tantalizingly close — not just for the wide swath of fans who hadn’t known that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association had agreed to a sudden-death All-Star Game derby, but for the players who had stuck around until the end of the game to bear witness to a contest teeming with pressure — particularly for an exhibition.
The rules were simple: NL manager Dave Roberts and AL manager Aaron Boone selected three players and one alternate to take three swings. The team with the most home runs wins the game. As nice as it would have been for Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge to participate, when they made their choices in the days leading up to the game, both managers selected players they anticipated would be warm from finishing on the field: Schwarber, Mets first baseman Pete Alonso and Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suarez for the NL, countering Brent Rooker of the A’s, Mariners outfielder Randy Arozarena and Tampa Bay first baseman Jonathan Aranda.
Late in the game, with the possibility of a tie three outs away, Los Angeles Dodgers bench coach Danny Lehmann approached Marlins outfielder Kyle Stowers and told him if the game did indeed go extra innings, he would need to hit for Suarez, who was removed from the game after being hit by a 100 mph pitch on his hand.
“You’re f—ing with me,” Stowers said.
“No, I’m seriously not,” Lehmann said. “This is real.”
“You’re kidding,” Stowers said.
“I’m serious,” Lehmann said.
“I thought I was the young guy getting teased,” Stowers later said. “Lo and behold, after the game ends, the managers meet up. And I think, ‘This might be for real.'”
Boone and Roberts had a finite group from which to choose. Around half the players were gone from the stadium, already headed home after a long, hot week here. Those who stuck around were rewarded with an urgent, entertaining gimmick that put players in a crucible, cranked the temperature and challenged them not to melt.
The format differed from the Home Run Derby the previous night, during which Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh won a contest that required stamina to make it through minuteslong rounds. The swing-off was different — reminiscent of the bonus rounds in the Derby during which fans get to admire home runs without the specter of another ball flying off the bat soon thereafter.
Ohtani wasn’t there. Neither was Judge. And it didn’t really matter, because the players were undeniably into the results, the sort of reaction that lent credibility to the format. After the AL tied the game on an infield hit from Steve Kwan with two outs and two strikes in the ninth, reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal — already in the clubhouse and in his street clothes — and Kansas City left-hander Kris Bubic were happy to follow the lead of Minnesota right-hander Joe Ryan, who said: “We gotta go out and watch this.”
They saw a show. And showmanship. And a comeback from a 2-1 deficit after Rooker hit two of his three swings out and Stowers parked one home run. And of course it was delivered by the ultimate showman, Schwarber. The 32-year-old introduced himself a decade ago with five home runs in his first postseason and then equaled that number in the 2023 NL Championship Series. All told, he has 21 homers in 69 postseason games. This was nothing, Schwarber being Schwarber, launching titanic shots in the most opportune of scenarios.
Even though he never takes batting practice on the field, Schwarber was perfectly thrilled to break that habit for the sake of the NL. With Dodgers third-base coach Dino Ebel throwing, Schwarber used a brand-new bat — a 99 mph Aroldis Chapman sinker had broken his lumber in the ninth inning — and then lined his first swing over the fence to center field. He followed with a high parabola 461 feet into right-center. His final swing was classic Schwarber, taking him down to his back knee, as if he were proposing the swing-off end right there with his third home run, down the right-field line.
It didn’t, not officially: Aranda, one of the breakout hitters of the first half, stepped up and proceeded to hit one ball off Truist Park’s brick wall in the outfield. He didn’t come close to a home run with two others. NL players rejoiced around Schwarber, leaving Alonso with nothing to do but celebrate the win.
“I don’t think I’d like that in-season if we lost on it,” San Diego Padres reliever Jason Adam said. “But for this setting, it was awesome.”
Almost everyone in both clubhouses shared Adam’s sentiment. The exigency of a limited-swing Derby — and the difficulty in going from game to batting practice with essentially a moment’s notice — transfixed players. And the audience, though understandably lamenting the absenteeism of some of the game’s biggest stars, mostly embraced the idea as novelty done right.
“There’s probably a world where you could see that in the future, where maybe it’s in some regular-season mix,” Boone said. “I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if people start talking about it like that. Obviously, I don’t think that should happen, necessarily, or would at any time in the near future. But I’ve got to say, it was pretty exciting.”
Already Tuesday had offered an All-Star Game filled with firsts. The inclusion of the automated ball-strike challenge system saw borderline ball-strike calls overturned by a simple tap on the head. Amid an outing in which he threw nine of his 18 pitches at 100-plus mph, rookie sensation Jacob Misiorowski unleashed an ungodly 98.1 mph slider so nasty it awed players in both dugouts.
In the end, it was an electric night for baseball, with Schwarber serving as the conduit. And when Jon Shestakofsky of the National Baseball Hall of Fame went to collect the bat Schwarber used to go 3-for-3 — a decade after Schwarber gave the Hall his bat used to collect the MVP award of the Futures Game — he noticed not a single scratch or sign that the bat had even been used.
“No ball marks when you flush it,” Schwarber said.
He had indeed — and in the process lent validity to the idea that the swing-off could be an entertaining way to cap All-Star week. Players around both clubhouses said they would consider signing up for the swing-off next year — and Stowers said the swing-off made him want to participate in the Home Run Derby in the future. The champion of this year’s Derby was perfectly content to share the spotlight with Schwarber.
“It’s good for the game, it’s good for baseball, it’s good for the fans,” Raleigh said.
And that’s the point, right? All of the consternation over Misiorowski making the NL team after just 25⅔ major league innings ignored a fundamental element of All-Star week — as much as it’s to reward the players, it’s to grow the game’s fandom, too.
Tuesday’s swing-off was baseball balm, surprisingly comforting, and sent the game into its second half with momentum. The trade deadline will provide that tension for the next two weeks and pennant races thereafter. The game is in a good place because it is evermore the realm of the unforeseen and unknowable.
We might not get many of these — only 13 past Midsummer Classics have gone to extra innings — which will only increase its charm, allowing the swing-off to become the most pleasant of surprises. As we saw Tuesday, there is glory in the pressure, the stress, the thrill of knowing you’ve got only three swings. It’s a beautiful little distillation of baseball, exceptional in portioned doses.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike