How Holmes became vital to Bucs' bullpen

PITTSBURGH -- When the Pirates left Clay Holmes off the 40-man roster in the offseason, it didn’t hamper the right-handed reliever’s confidence. But it did lead him to consider where he was as a Major Leaguer, and who he could be.

“If anything, I think it created a sense of urgency that if [being an effective MLB pitcher] is what I really want to be, now's the best time to really put forth my best effort and believe in the process that I'm putting my work into," Holmes said.

Holmes impressed the Pirates by throwing seven scoreless appearances in Spring Training, earning him a spot on the 26-man roster. Now, he’s having one of the strongest showings of any Pittsburgh reliever, posting a 3.09 ERA in 22 games and an 0.86 ERA over his past 19 games.

His 22 appearances are tied for the most on the Pirates with Sam Howard, who served as the lone left-hander in the bullpen for the first month-plus of the season.

How has he done it?

Well, one big part of that has obviously been an improvement in his pitches. Holmes’ bread-and-butter pitch, the sinker, has been a big factor in the average launch angle against his arsenal being below zero for the first time in his Major League career -- meaning he’s getting a lot of ground balls.

“It’s something that we’ve continued to talk to him about,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. "Don’t let a walk or a hit or anything affect what happens next because [of his] ability to put the ball on the ground. There are not a lot of guys who throw it 96-98 mph with heavy sink. There’s a weapon to get you out of trouble when you have to, and he’s done a really good job of executing it.”

The sinker works best, though, when it has a complement to keep the hitters off it. This year, that’s been his slider, which has markedly improved. In 2019, Holmes’ last full season, the slider’s expected slugging percentage -- which is based on exit velocity and launch angle plus strikeouts -- was .457. Through Wednesday, it sits at .206.

Holmes said he thinks his slider is tunneling off the sinker well, giving a similar impression of drop before breaking off in an opposite direction.

“The filth of the slider has come a long way,” Holmes said. “It’s a pitch I feel very confident in. I like the movement profile, like the ability to get back into counts and throw for strikes, generate swing and miss when I need to. It’s been a pitch that’s huge for me.”

Part of his rebound has also been how he approaches those pitches. Holmes began reconsidering how to use his arsenal back in 2019, when he took a trip to a park with former Pirates reliever Jared Hughes, then a member of the Phillies.

Hughes asked Holmes about his sinker. It’s common enough for two pitchers who are friends to talk about those kinds of things. But as the conversation went on, Holmes realized that Hughes knew as much or more about his sinker than he did.

“I was asking myself these questions, and it kind of sparked something in me,” Holmes said. “I really wanted to dive deeper into this, because his best pitches, he knew what they were but he was still searching for how to go from just knowing to kind of creating that consistency over and over.

“That’s something I’ve started since then.”

So Holmes dove deeper into his mechanics, taking a trip to the American Sports Medicine Institute to have an assessment done on his pitching motion. From that, he’s taken a few cues that have helped him unify his body’s movement and create a more consistent shape and attack.

“Being more prepared physically in that sense, that’s created more of a consistent movement from my body,” Holmes said. “My release is more consistent.”

Then, there’s the mental side of the game, which has been a struggle for Holmes. He’s worked with Pirates mental skills coach Andy Bass -- as well as other people in the organization who “know a lot more about it than I do,” as he put it -- to more productively mesh the way he thinks with the way he performs.

“It's just establishing that connection of rewiring the psychology and the way your brain processes things, and how your body's moving,” Holmes said. “It's all connected.”

With the stronger, more consistent pitching ability, Holmes' refreshed mindset has been key to the amazing stretch of pitching he’s producing. His span of 19 appearances with a 0.86 ERA came after he allowed five runs to the Reds in a rough series for the Pirates in Cincinnati. That was an all-too-familiar type of outcome early in his MLB career.

Now Homes is able to brush it aside, trust himself and put up zero after zero, as if he’s a completely different pitcher from the one who began the calendar year on a Minors deal.

“There's still always room for improvement,” Holmes said, “but you just kind of have that belief that even on your worst days, you're still good enough to get people out. On your best days, you're looking to dominate.

“I think that that kind of shifts from things getting ugly on your worst days. That's maybe how it's been in the past, but I guess that confidence and belief, it just takes away the anxiety that you feel from performance or whatever it may be that's linked to it.”