Curve and Composure Behind the Emergence of A's Jesus Luzardo

The rookie left-hander isn't rushing things this spring because the Athletics have let him know they want him in the rotation.

There were two things to take out of Jesus Luzardo’s one-month Major League debut last September.

He showed the A’s the potential brilliance of his left arm. And he did it while pitching in a role unfamiliar to him.

One of the power arms in the Oakland minor league system, Luzardo had always been a starter, but the left-hander was asked to pitch in setup relief in the middle of a pennant race for the A’s. That was after 43 of his 46 minor league games over the last three years had been starts.

And he was dominant – six games, 12 innings, two runs, five hits and three walks allowed. That made for a 1.50 ERA, a 0.667 WHIP and some knee-knocking 16 strikeouts.

“Whatever we ask him to do, he’s happy to do it and wants to contribute,” Melvin said. “Last year, he came up and pitched at the big-league level for the first time in a role that he was unaccustomed to, and had a tremendous amount of success.”

This time around it’s his plan to show American League batters a little more of what made him so tough to deal with in 2019. In his first start Tuesday, two innings with one hit and two strikeouts against the Padres Tuesday, he was throwing more curves than would be expected this early in the spring.

They weren’t great curves, by his own reckoning, but they worked.

“I plan on it being a (key pitch),” Luzardo told the A’s media scrum. “It wasn’t as good as it should be, but hopefully, step by step, it’ll get better.”

Luzardo threw the curve almost 30 percent of the time last year. He threw it 51 times and didn’t give up a hit on any of them. Ten times he ended an at-bat with a curve for strike three.

Luzardo hasn’t started a game in the big leagues, but make no mistake – he’s in the starting rotation. So much so that the A’s pitching coach Scott Emerson has made it a point that he doesn’t have to impress from Day 1. He needs to build up to the point where he’s ready come the end of March and the start of the regular season.

It’s a nice change for Luzardo.

“I’m not taking it easy, but I don’t start off like I did last year, going as hard as I could, trying to just make a name for myself,” Luzardo said. “Kind of just (trying to) be smart about it, which is what I’m trying to do.

To this point there are no restrictions on how much Luzardo will pitch in 2020. But because of a series of injuries, he’s never thrown as many as 110 innings in a season, so it would make sense if the A’s paced him and fellow lefty A.J. Puk, who has some similar issues.

At the same time, Melvin sounds like a manager who will keep Luzardo in the mix as much as possible.

“He’s very composed,” Melvin said. “He’s got great stuff. And he knows what he can do and when he needs to reach back. He’s very ahead of his time.”