The key for Zuber? Trust the stuff

PEORIA, Ariz. -- A year ago this week, Tyler Zuber was a non-roster invite at his first big league Spring Training who burst onto the scene by striking out three consecutive White Sox sluggers in Edwin Encarnación, Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert.

This year, he’s coming off his rookie season and seems primed for a spot in the Royals bullpen.

“It’s cliché to say, but last year was a rollercoaster,” Zuber said earlier this week.

When the coronavirus pandemic shut down baseball, Zuber went home to Arkansas and kept throwing, hoping to be ready for whenever it returned. After a Summer Camp performance that he wasn’t thrilled with but also wasn’t too upset about, he got word that he was jumping from Double-A to the Major League roster and was heading to Cleveland for Opening Day on July 24.

“I was starstruck,” Zuber said. “I was like, ‘Wait a minute, you mean like I’m on the flight to Cleveland? I’m on the Opening Day roster?’ Really hard to wrap my mind around that, until I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I made it.’ And then making my debut, obviously that was amazing.”

Zuber became just the 10th Royals pitcher to make his debut on Opening Day when he entered in the bottom of the seventh inning and delivered two hitless innings.

“I felt like every throw I made during warmups, I was pretty much handing the ball to Salvy,” Zuber said, referring to catcher Salvador Perez. “Felt like it was coming out 1,000 miles an hour. And I just thought, ‘I have to get the first one out of the way.’ Of course, the first pitch I threw, he hits a ground ball to first base and I have to cover first. But I knew as soon as I got the first strike in, I was fine.”

Zuber finished the season with a 4.09 ERA in 22 innings. He struck out 30, but walked 20. Right-handed relievers under 6 feet tall tend to fly under the radar, but Zuber has long been compared to Greg Holland because of his stature and stuff. Zuber attacks hitters with a mid-90s fastball, and his above-average slider is his go-to secondary pitch with a curveball mixed in. His changeup was effective in the limited times he threw it, holding batters to a .167 average. He threw it to 38 lefties and only four righties, according to Statcast.

But those command issues are something he knows will have to improve this year if he wants to stick in the bullpen. Some of the problems came down to trusting his stuff at the big league level, while some stemmed from being too fine trying to get hitters to chase.

“I played like I was nibbling on the corners versus when I went right at people sometimes,” Zuber said. “Just trusting myself and that it was good enough. It took me 80 or 90 percent of the season to realize that. And then it was like, I can just do what I’ve been doing my whole life and get guys out. I don’t have to trick them or do anything special. That was the biggest thing -- my stuff was good enough to get guys out at the Major League level. Now I just have to go out there and do it on an everyday basis. That’s my focus now.”

Drafted in the sixth round of the 2017 Draft, Zuber has climbed in the Royals system as a closer, notching 45 saves in three seasons. He went from knowing exactly when he was going to pitch in the Minors -- in the ninth inning of a close game -- to having to be ready at any point of the game in the Majors. And instead of facing hitters who knew they had limited opportunity in the ninth inning, he was facing better hitters with more patience in the middle innings.

“He’s going up against Major League hitters who have better plate discipline,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “And then you’re also taking a situation, it could be in the fifth or sixth, where it’s not quite elevated pressure of being in the last inning. There’s reality to that. He was making ninth-inning base-loaded pitches in the sixth with nobody on and nobody out and wondering why they’re not chasing.

“I think we could throw him out there in a tough situation at any point, and he’s going to get a hitter to probably get over-anxious. He’s got a very good makeup for a bullpen to have a lot of success there, but right now, he’s got to be of the mindset of how not to put himself in those leverage stuff and trust his stuff on the plate.”

Zuber only allowed one earned run in 9 1/3 innings in September. His walks stayed high with seven, but he struck out 18 batters in his final month.

That’s the type pitcher he wants to be this year -- trusting his stuff in the zone.

“I still, in my mind, am thinking I still have something to prove,” Zuber said. “Last year, there were some things that I showed that are who I am, but I also showed things that are not Tyler Zuber. That was somebody different. I still think I have a little chip on my shoulder, that I have something to prove. I still haven’t made it. That’s kind of how my mindset is going into it.”