Joe Posnanski

For Friday’s Kansas City Star I wrote a piece about Brad Ziegler, relief pitcher for the Oakland A’s and truly amazing story. The beauty of blog writing is that you are not held back by space considerations, and you can fix sloppiness, and you can adjust the story as you go. Here is the full version of that story — including an update on Fernando Valenzuela and what might be considered the real record:

* * *

On the last day of May, Brad Ziegler pitched in his first major-league game for the Oakland A’s. He could not believe it. He had made it to the big leagues, finally, after all this time. Everyone has a story about how they got to the big leagues, of course. Few of those stories involve two skull fractures, a release, a whole new pitching style and six years in the minors.

Whatever. He had made it. On the last day of May, Ziegler entered the game in the eighth inning against the Texas Rangers. There were two outs, a man on third. The A’s were more or less out of it at the time, they were down 7-4, so it probably did not feel like a pressure to situation to anyone but the 28-year-old submarine pitcher on the mound. He promptly gave up a run-scoring single to Ian Kinsler. It did not count as his run, of course — though he was not thinking about that at the time. Ziegler picked off Kinsler to get out of the inning. And that was that. In Ziegler’s first major-league outing, he did not actually retire a batter.

Three days later, he went into a game against Detroit in the fifth inning. That A’s were down again, 2-0 this time, and there were runners on second and third, and the first batter he faced, Miguel Cabrera, launched a line drive to deep right field. It was caught, and a run scored. It wasn’t his run. He then hit Carlos Guillen. He got Edgar Renteria to ground out to third.

The groundout was crucial. The groundout was why Ziegler had made it to the big leagues after all this time. People make successful pitching so complicated, and it is complicated as far as that goes. But it’s also pretty simple: Strikeouts and groundouts. That’s what it comes down to, if you think about. Everyone knows what strikeouts do for a pitcher — Pedro, Ryan, Unit, Koufax, what have you. The give best strikeout pitchers in baseball — Tim Lincecum, Chad Billingsley, Edison Volquez, Jonathan Sanchez and A.J. Burnett — are a combined 55-32 with a 3.52 ERA.

But not every good pitcher has that unique gift, after all, that special ability to make Major League hitters swing and miss again and again. The ground ball is their equalizer. This year, the five most extreme groundball pitchers — Brandon Webb, Tim Hudson, Derek Lowe, Aaron Cook and Roy Halladay — are a combined 60-34 with a 3.24 ERA. Getting ground balls is a gift too, and a little more than a year ago, Ziegler suddenly had that gift. He had started throwing a submarine pitch, and batters were swinging over it, chopping it into the ground. It worked beautifully in the minor leagues. Nobody was entirely sure if it would continue in the big time.

The next inning against Detroit, he got three more ground ball outs.

•••

Ziegler pitched again the next day against Detroit, another scoreless inning, this one sealed when he forced Cabrera to hit into a double play. He held the Angels scoreless on back-to-back appearances. On June 12, he shut down the Yankees on three consecutive groundouts.

That was about the time when Brad Ziegler started to feel that something special was going on. There had been so many times in his crazy career when it looked like he he might not make it. He had been a good a pitcher growing up in Odessa, Mo. He was a conventional pitcher then — over the top. He had a pretty good fastball, like a lot of kids. He went to Missouri State and pitched well — won 12 games his senior year.

That was the year Philadelphia drafted him in the 20th round. As a general rule, college seniors drafted in the 20th round have roughly the same opportunity to make the big leagues as college seniors who don’t play baseball at all. Sure enough, Ziegler pitched three games for the Phillies minor-league team in Batavia, N.Y., and then he got released. Scouts are always looking for something special in a young pitcher, something that looks emerges like a red rose in a black and white movie. They want to see 95 on their radar guns. They want to see a slider that detonates just before it gets to home plate. There are a lot of guys like Brad Ziegler. They fall through the cracks.

So that was the first time that Ziegler wondered if he would ever make it to the majors. This is the time when most walk away, get jobs in offices, pitch in adult leagues around town, talk a bit about how they weren’t quite good enough, they didn’t have that one uncommon pitch. Brad says he did not think of giving up then. The Zieglers have a deep faith. It’s always touchy for some when talking about God and sports, but there can be something about faith and a power of destiny that drives athletes, something about faith that can assure a stockboy at a HyVee grocery story in Iowa that he can be a quarterback in the NFL, something about faith that can help a man lost in the hell of drugs come out of it, come all the way back and become a Major League star, something about faith that tells a 23-year-old kid from Missouri released after three games that he will make it to the big leagues someday.

Ziegler pitched four games for Schaumburg in the Northern League — struck out 26 and walked 1 in those games. The Oakland A’s saw him — they had drafted him in the 31st round the year before he signed with Philadelphia, so they knew a little something about him — and they signed him and sent him to Modesto, Calif. He pitched well there — won nine games.

Then he was pitching in the playoffs when he faced Fred Lewis, who is in the big leagues now, and Lewis smashed a line drive that hit Ziegler in the right temple and cracked his skull. “I wanted to finish the game,” Ziegler would say — because that’s the kind of guy he is — but instead he ended up at the hospital where doctors said he had fluid on his brain and stood by for emergency brain surgery.

As it turned out, he did not need that surgery. The swelling did go down, but one doctor, the first doctor, told him: “I don’t think you should ever pitch again.” And that was the second time he wondered if he would ever make the show.

•••

After he shut down the Yankees, Ziegler held San Francisco scoreless. He pitched four consecutive days — two against Arizona and two against Florida — and he did not allow a run in those games either. He held off the Giants again, the Angels again and on Independence Day, he had a 1-2-3 inning against the White Sox, a Jermaine Dye strikeout sandwiched in the middle.

Now people were beginning to notice — this 28-year old kid had not given up a run all year.

Where had he come from? Well, he came from the hospital. After the line drive hit his head, he decided he had to pitch again. Again, someone else might have felt very differently — so many pitchers talk about the nightmares they have, the line drive coming back at their head, the powerlessness they feel, they can never quite function the same. Some walk away. Some try to come back but something fundamental changes. You need a certain fearlessness to play baseball at the highest levels, to face fastballs and line drives that buzz when they go by, and once you lose that you are done. Brad does not remember being afraid, exactly. The way he figured, that the odds of getting hit by a second line drive were pretty slim.

He pitched the very next year. He had mixed results. His strikeout numbers were good, for instance. But he gave up a lot of hits. He had a 6.86 ERA in Class AA Midland, Texas. The next year, his ERA got a lot better — dropped down to 3.43 — but his strikeout numbers fell with it. Anyway, by then he was 26, and that’s about the age when teams usually stop looking at you as a prospect and start looking at you as a potential pitching coach. It’s a rough business, and it looked like time might have run out. That was the third time that Ziegler wondered if he would ever make it.

Then, something dramatic happened. Ziegler did not know it was dramatic at the time. The year ended, and a coach and former big league pitcher, Ron Romanick, approached Ziegler and said: “You know, you might make a pretty good submarine pitcher.”

•••

On July 7, Ziegler threw two scoreless innings against Seattle. That brought his scoreless streak to 15. At that time, it seemed more an oddity than anything else. Then he threw another scoreless inning against the Mariners. He had two scoreless outings against those beloved Angels. He faced the Yankees again and held them scoreless again, this time by striking out Alex Rodriguez with a runner on first.

Then, the streak was more than an oddity. People could not help but notice — NOBODY was hitting the ball in the air against this guy. It was staggering. His new sidearm style was making the ball dive down — Ziegler had noticed right away, first time he started throwing with the new style, that his ball was getting tremendous sink. It was pretty impressive. And it made him laugh. His first reaction when Romanick had asked him to pitch submarine was to say no. He did not want to be a sidearm pitcher. That’s not how he saw himself. Ziegler liked pitching the way he had his whole life.

“But then I thought, ‘What if this is my best chance and I don’t take it?’ ” he says. “I really thought that if the A’s saw something in me and were willing to put the effort to teach me a new style, then I shouldn’t pass it up because of stubbornness.”

He started pitching submarine style in 2007, and immediately his numbers dazzled. He didn’t even know what he was doing half the time. “I was thinking constantly about what my body was supposed to be doing instead of my pitches,” he says. But it didn’t matter, the ball crashed, and hitters kept swinging over. He had a 1.14 ERA in Midland. He won eight games in Class AAA Sacramento. And he did not give up a single home run all year. Not one.

This past January he was back in Springfield playing catch when a kid jumped in front of him, tipped the ball. It hit him and fractured his skull. Again. “Can you believe it?” he says. “Twice. It’s like, maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket.”

The fracture wasn’t life threatening this time. But having your head cracked twice makes a man think. That was the last time Ziegler wondered if he would ever make it.

•••

After striking out A-Rod, Ziegler shut down Tampa Bay for two innings. He then did not give up a run Texas for 1 1/3 innings. That was a tough one — he gave up a pretty long fly ball to Michael Young with a man on first base. He made a couple of adjustments. That might be the most amazing thing about this streak — Ziegler is still learning this crazy side-winding motion. He had thrown 25 consecutive scoreless innings, and he’s still figuring out what he can do.

Then it was his big day. He needed one inning against Texas on July 27 to officially break George McQuillan’s more-than-100-year-old record for most scoreless innings at the start of a career. He got the out by striking out Michael Young. He struck out Josh Hamilton. He finished off the inning with a ground ball by Marlon Byrd. And that was it. He was off to the greatest start in baseball history.

“When I heard the record was that old, I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “I just thought for sure that there would have been a starter that had three or four straight shutouts to start a career. … What about Fernando Valenzuela? He was so great when he first came up.”*

*You know what? Brad is absolutely right. Unless I’m missing something very obvious, Fernando Valenzuela actually began his career by not giving up a run in his first 34 1/3 innings pitched — that should be the official record. He came up in 1980, pitched 10 times in relief, and did not give up a run in 17 2/3 innings. Then, in 1981, he threw a 5-hit shutout against Houston in his first start, and he threw 7 2/3 shutout innings against the Giants. The streak was finally broken when Larry Herndon doubled and Enos Cabell followed with the run-scoring single. So that’s 34 1/3 scoreless innings. Of course, that WAS over two seasons, so I’m going to assume that’s why it’s not an official record. It is still something for Ziegler to try and beat.**

**I just heard from Brad … he thinks that brilliant reader B.E. Earl is right, that Fernando’s record does not count because he gave up two unearned runs in his first outing. Brad has not given up an unearned run either. “That’s what makes my defense so special behind me,” he writes. “They haven’t made any errors to end the streak.”

After he broke the record, he pitching another scoreless inning, getting the last two outs on a Chris Davis double play grounder.

What a great story. And here’s the best part: The story isn’t over. Wednesday in Oakland, Ziegler pitched three more scoreless innings against the Kansas City Royals. He came in with runners on first and second and got a strikeout and a double play grounder from Billy Butler. The next inning, he gave up a single to Miguel Olivo, and got a double play grounder from Tony Pena. The next inning he intentionally walked Alex Gordon, and got a double play grounder from Jose Guillen. Incredible. He has finished off each of his last four scoreless innings with double plays.

He has pitched 30 innings. He has gotten 10 double play ground balls.

And his ERA is still 0.00.

Ziegler sounds a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. He credits his teammates. (“I’m not a strikeout pitcher, so they have to be really good behind me.”) He credits his family for helping him stick with this crazy game. They all credit God. “Sometimes it’s hard to say “thank you” to God publicly without it looking like you only think He’s there when everything’s going good,” Brad’s father, Greg Ziegler, says. “He’s always there holding us up.”

And, this is kind of funny, Brad says that he hopes Oakland won’t send him down when a couple of other pitchers come off the disabled list. He still has options left, and a couple of other pitchers do not have options, and it’s a funny game.

“I’ve learned,” he says, “that you never know what will happen in baseball.”