The adjustment that began to turn around J.C. Ramirez’s career was borne out of the frustration of his catchers.
Shortly after the Angels claimed Ramirez on waivers from the Cincinnati Reds last summer, as he began working out of the Angels bullpen, all parties involved realized he could not keep throwing his four-seam fastball.
“It was cutting a lot, and Jett Bandy was going crazy,” Ramirez said of the former Angels catcher. “He didn’t know if it was going to sink or cut or go straight.”
So the Angels had Ramirez abandon the four-seamer and switch to the more controllable two-seamer, which reliably sunk. That turned out to be the first step toward Ramirez going from a journeyman reliever with only fleeting success, to a dependable member of the Angels’ bullpen.
The next step was this spring, when he introduced the curveball that has made his transition to starter go better than just about anyone could have expected.
In an Angels season in which much has gone wrong, with injuries or slumps infecting just about everyone on the roster, one of the pleasant surprises has been Ramirez.
Out of nowhere — or everywhere, as his five previous organizations might suggest — Ramirez has become the Angels’ most dependable starting pitcher.
In his 10 starts, he has a 4.01 ERA, a figure that jumped after he allowed seven runs last time out. It was his worst outing, after a stretch in which he’d posted a 2.35 ERA over seven starts.
As he talked to the media after that game, he was able to shrug it off as an isolated rough spot. He fully expected to be sharp again the next time he took the ball, on Thursday in Detroit.
That confidence — more so than the two-seamer or the curve — is what has separated this version of Ramirez, 28, from the guy who kept getting passed around other organizations.
The Seattle Mariners signed him in 2005 as a 16-year-old out of Nicaragua, a Central American nation that has produced only 24 major leaguers. Boxing is king there, Ramirez said.
He started in the Mariners system, but then became a reliever as he passed through the Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Indians, Arizona Diamondbacks and Reds. None had him pitch more than 33 big league innings. None had him start a single major league game.
“The other teams, I’d get there for one month and then the guy who was injured would come back so I’d go down,” he said. “I’d pitch four innings and give up one or two runs and get sent down. It’s hard to pitch like that, to survive …
“Maybe they should have given me the confidence. They said ‘someone is hurt so you come up.’ No, I earned coming up because I worked hard in the minors.”
Ramirez said the faith he felt from Manager Mike Scioscia and General Manager Billy Eppler paid immediate dividends. Along with a two-seamer that routinely hit 97 mph, he posted a 2.91 ERA in 43 games out of the Angels bullpen last season.
The Angels, desperate for a starting pitcher, saw his velocity and size — he’s 6-feet-4, 250 pounds — and figured he had the stuff and durability to start, so they told him over the winter they were going to stretch him out.
Ramirez said he was actually disappointed by the news, because he didn’t think that was their ultimate goal.
“I thought they wanted me to do this to be the long guy (in the bullpen),” Ramirez said. “I was kind of frustrated, because I thought I had a good end of the year in the bullpen as a late-inning guy. I was kind of frustrated a little, but I had to do it. I want to be in the big leagues.”
Even as Ramirez was starting spring training games, he said he still had one foot in the bullpen. He felt this was just a temp job, a token “opportunity” before he would find himself pitching in long relief in the regular season.
One day late in the spring, though, after acknowledging he was surprised to still be getting the chance to start, he seemed to finally embrace a role he’d given up on since his last minor league start in 2011.
“I forgot about it,” he said. “I knew I had the stuff to be in the bullpen. It’s the easy way to do it. It’s just one inning, battle for three outs. Making it through the fifth inning is hard.”
Ramirez did, in fact, begin the season in the Angels’ bullpen, but after Garrett Richards got hurt in the first week, he moved into the rotation.
Each of his first starts was clearly on-the-job training — learning how to prepare before the game, how to approach hitters a second and third time and how to mix his pitches.
Ramirez said the first moment he truly felt comfortable as a starter was after he faced the Houston Astros for a second time. On May 6, he held the Astros to one run in six innings, better than he’d done two weeks earlier in Houston.
“Everyone said, when you face the lineup the second time, it’s tough,” Ramirez said. “And then facing a team the second time, it’s tough. When I could pitch that way against the Astros, a pretty good team, that made me feel pretty confident in myself.”
Scioscia, who has been trying to manage around a rotation with both Richards and Tyler Skaggs on the disabled list, is impressed what Ramirez has done.
“He’s doing something that is extremely difficult to do, and he’s been meeting every challenge along the way,” Scioscia said. “We used to say, ‘Where is he going to be after 75 pitches? Where’s he going to be after 90 pitches? Where’s he going to be after start 5? Where’s he going to be after a rough first inning?’
“There are so many things that are markers as to what makes a successful starting pitcher, and J.C. is wrapping his arms around and flying by them. That’s what impressed us all about J.C. He is taking this challenge head on, and pitching his game and he’s been a big boost to our rotation.”
