Joel Zumaya Wants To Slow Down

Joel Zumaya was a real life equivalent of Rick Vaughn in Detroit last season. He's got flames tattoed on his arm, and he backs it up by bringing the heat. Hitting 101 and 102 on the radar gun last season was a regular occurrence, and occasionally Zumaya hit 103.

Everytime he entered a game, or hit triple digits, it worked the Comerica faithful into a frenzy. Well, it looks like this season, things may be a little calmer in Detroit.

"There aren't going to be too many 101s and 102s out there this year," Zumaya said. "I'm going to go out there and pitch this year. I hope I get those ground balls."

"I don't want to try to strike out the whole world this year. I know I can get outs by getting the guy to pop up or roll into a double play.

"I really don't need to throw 100 m.p.h. all the time. I can get a guy out with a 95 m.p.h. sinker and have him easily ground to second for a double play, and I'm out of the inning."

Excuse me a second while I try and wrap my head around the idea of a 95MPH sinker.

Ok, I'm back. I can understand what Zumaya's thinking is, but a part of me hopes this is just nothing more than having too much time on his hands in spring training. Pitchers always try to do new things in the spring, but once the season starts, they go back to what got them where they are.

In Zumaya's case, throwing laser beams seemed to have worked pretty well. He went 6-3 last year with a 1.94ERA coming out of the bullpen. Not to mention he struck out 97 batters in 83.1 innings of work. Why on Earth Zumaya would want to mess with such success baffles me.