Castillo, Gray's common link to earning ASG nod
Pitching coach Johnson has helped boost Cincinnati's rotation
CINCINNATI -- While Luis Castillo was enduring an up-and-down 2018 season for the Reds, Sonny Gray was going through his worst Major League season with the Yankees. Yet, both were in Cleveland on Monday to begin their All-Star experience.
The common thread to Castillo and Gray, and the rest of the Reds' rotation that owns the National League’s third-best ERA, has been their pitching coach -- Derek Johnson.
“He definitely has helped positively. We have made the adjustments and every time he tells me something to adjust, it seems to work out for me,” Castillo said through an interpreter.
In 2018, Castillo had a 4.30 ERA, but the right-hander had a 2.44 ERA in 11 second-half starts. This season, the 26-year-old is 8-3 with a 2.29 ERA in 18 starts. It's his first time as an All-Star.
“I feel really happy because last year my first half wasn’t good enough,” Castillo said. “One of the goals I wanted to achieve this year was to have a really good first half, and I did it.”
Meanwhile, Castillo has been able to maintain his mid- to high-90s fastball while making his changeup even more lethal.
“I’m certainly not going to take any credit for it,” Johnson said. “For him, I think he probably took a step to finding out who he was a little bit more. But the credit goes to him. Him being the Opening Day starter kind of led to maybe some confidence. When we named him that, the look on his face was pretty priceless.”
One of the things that Johnson did for Castillo, was let him throw his changeup as much as he wanted. Statcast data says he has thrown it 32.1 percent of the time, which is slightly more than his four-seam fastball (31.6 percent).
There have been seven times this season that Castillo recorded at least six strikeouts with his changeup. Nobody else in the Majors has two outings like that, and all other Major League pitchers have combined for eight such games.
“We felt like it is an elite pitch,” Johnson said. “We felt like that even if hitters are looking for it, it’s not a definite that they will be able to hit it. I think that probably freed him up a bit to say, ‘Hey, it’s my best pitch. I’m going to throw it whenever I think it’s the right time.’ It’s helped him.”
Having pitched at Vanderbilt from 2008-11, where Johnson was the pitching coach, Gray was initially intimidated because it was more a student-teacher relationship at the time.
“You’re a little timid of a college coach. Then after college, we get to go to some weddings together and hang out more as friends because we are. Gray said. “Him getting to the big leagues -- every time we saw each other, we’d go grab dinner.”
It’s such a good relationship. I respect the heck out of him. There’s no question over anything he says. But he doesn’t ever come off like that. He’s always very personable, very individualized. It was a wide circle of events to get back here. But I know now not to be scared of him.”
Gray has long appreciated Johnson’s strong ability to communicate and connect.
“He's really good at mental preparation and honing in on putting a package together for you, and it's very personalized,” Gray said. “He just instills confidence over and over in guys. He works hard at it too, he really does. I remember before I even came to Cincinnati, we were going through that little three-day period where I had to negotiate a [three-year, $30.5 million] extension or whatnot, I finally just picked up the phone and called D.J. and talked to him for two to three hours.”
Gray, 29, had a 4.90 ERA in 30 games (23 starts) last season, but he is 5-5 with a 3.59 ERA in 17 starts this season. He was named a replacement to the NL roster on Saturday, replacing the injured Max Scherzer. It will be his second All-Star Game, but he didn't pitch in 2015 when he represented Oakland.
“I think everyone kind of knows that New York wasn’t a great fit for me, place for me, last year,” Gray said. “It didn’t seem to work out for whatever reason. But looking back, I wouldn’t change one thing about it. I wouldn’t change the ups and downs, the experience on a personal level or a baseball field level because coming back to an All-Star Game, I can’t describe the feeling. It’s very special.”
Cincinnati’s rotation has been at or near the bottom of the league for several years. The last time the club sent a starting pitcher to the All-Star Game was 2014 in Minneapolis, when Johnny Cueto and Alfredo Simon were on the roster. This season, the Reds pitching staff is third in the Major Leagues with a 3.77 ERA.
“I think there’s a lot of people you have to give credit to. Certainly, Lee Tunnell, our bullpen coach; Caleb Cotham, our assistant pitching coach; David Bell, our manager,” Johnson said. “I think it takes a lot of people that are around these guys every day to help. You’ve got to give a lot of credit to them. I think you also have to give a lot of credit to these pitchers too. The thing I probably saw the most in Spring Training was we had a lot of guys who were really hungry to be good. Maybe they just needed a couple of more pieces of information or a couple of more pieces of the puzzle to get it right.”
The All-Star Game presented by Mastercard will be televised nationally by FOX Sports; in Canada by Rogers Sportsnet and RDS; and worldwide by partners in more than 180 countries. FOX Deportes will provide Spanish-language coverage in the United States, while ESPN Radio and ESPN Radio Deportes will provide exclusive national radio coverage. MLB Network, MLB.com and SiriusXM also will provide comprehensive All-Star Week coverage.