Former Pitcher Loewen Gets in Swing

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- As a kid in British Columbia, Adam Loewen would race home from school to catch Blue Jays games on TV, since Canada's team would start playing at 4 p.m. local time.

When Loewen dreamed of playing for the Jays, it was as a hitter.

He took an interesting detour on the way to that dream: 35 games for the Orioles as a left-handed pitcher.

"I've always enjoyed hitting more than pitching," said Loewen, whose mound days ended because of a stress fracture in his elbow, "but pitching took me further. I gave it a shot. I enjoyed it. But now that I'm hitting, I'm loving it. I couldn't be happier.

"To have gone through my pitching career and know that I gave it everything and there's nothing else I could do, that really gives me peace of mind that I can keep doing this without thinking, 'Well, maybe I can go back and pitch.' It's really not an option."

Now Loewen, with a 4 1/2-inch screw in his that left elbow, is a non-roster outfielder in Toronto's camp after hitting .236 last year in the Class A Florida State League.

"I am pretty far away," he admitted. "Right now I'm just learning my swing. I have an idea what's going to make me successful. It's just constant repetition and repeating the same swing.

"Last year when I was working with hitting coaches, I thought I knew what they were talking about. But now that I look back, I really didn't have a clue, because I had no game experience to compare things to."

He said things started to click toward the end of his season in the Arizona Fall League. (It was his second time there; he went 2-1 with a 1.67 ERA in 2005.)

Loewen, who turns 26 on April 9, hit .200 for Phoenix while working on the side with Jays minor-league hitting coach Justin Mashore, who lives in the area.

"At the end I was able to hit offspeed pitches, which I really didn't do all year," Loewen said.

"It's really learning how to get ready for a fastball. Once you can do that, put your body in a good position to hit ... last year it took me half a season to figure out how to do that. Just getting my hands ready at the same time my foot's down and the ball's arriving in the hitting zone."

"I am pretty far away. Right now I'm just learning my swing."
- Adam Loewen Loewen is definitely a project, but Toronto feels he has the tools -- size (6-foot-6, 222 pounds), power and arm ("I can let it go with no pain. I have to limit my throws and be smart about it.") -- to reach the majors as a hitter.

"I still like that kid," manager Cito Gaston said. "I still think he has a good swing."

Some teams liked that swing when Loewen came out of high school in Surrey, B.C., but more teams liked the arm. The Orioles took him fourth overall in the 2002 draft and, after a year in junior college, he signed with Baltimore.

By 2006 he was in the majors, making 19 starts and holding hitters to a .259 average.

But in May 2007, Loewen suffered a stress fracture in his elbow. He underwent surgery in June to put the screw in the elbow and tried to come back in 2008.

Unsuccessfully.

"It feels like my arm's slowly breaking," he recalled, somehow managing a chuckle.

But he already knew his next step: hitting.

"That was the plan in the back of my head," Loewen said, "because I knew I was coming to the end. So I prepared myself for it and I knew what I wanted to do right away."

Making the pitcher-to-hitter conversion is harder than the other way around. Rick Ankiel pulled it off, but before him, no one since the 1970s had debuted in the majors as a pitcher made it back for significant time as a position player -- Bobby Darwin (1971-77 Dodgers, Twins, Brewers, Red Sox and Cubs) and Willie Smith (1964-71 Angels, Indians, Cubs and Reds).

Loewen signed for $4 million with the Orioles, so why work his way up from the bottom all over again?

Yet he almost doesn't understand that question.

"It seems like an easy choice to me," he said. "I'm in this 'til the end."

After the 2008 season he signed with Toronto, a two-year minor-league deal, because everyone knew this would take time.

"I really didn't realize how far away I was until the last year," he said. "Pitchers would see this big guy standing in the box [and think], "OK, it's [time to throw] junk.' That's when I had to learn."

Loewen is expected to open this season at Double-A New Hampshire.

"2010 will really tell us the tale," general manager Alex Anthopoulos said.

Said Loewen: "I think my drive's a lot stronger now. I've been there, I've tasted it, I know what it's like.

"But I'm enjoying myself, right now, in the minor leagues, just as much as I was when I was pitching in the majors. That's really a sign for me that it was the right decision."