May 7, 2023

By Patrick Kennedy

Canadian Baseball Network

Career-wise – and bear in mind that said career is still in its relative infancy - the past 14 months have been a roller-coaster of highs and lows for Seattle Mariners’ pitcher Matt Brash, who so far is the only Kingstonian to ever play big-league baseball.

Let’s see, there was an exhilarating promotion to the team’s starting rotation last spring, then a widely touted televised debut in Chicago, followed soon after by a deflating demotion to the minors, then a rejuvenating conversion, and soon afterwards another promotion that has led to his current status as an integral “go-to” member of the Mariners’ bullpen. It’s been an emotional ride, but according to his boss, the best is yet to come.

“Matt has big-league stuff and the ability to strike out anyone in this league,” Seattle skipper Scott Servais trumpeted from the M’s dugout prior to a game during the Mariners’ recent three-game series against the host Toronto Blue Jays. “Not only is he gaining confidence each time he pitches, but his team believes in him. That’s why we have him in a pivot role, to use in high-leverage spots.”

While the M’s dropped two of the three games at Rogers Centre, Brash pitched brilliantly in all three, each time in a “high-leverage” situation – that is, at a crucial point in the game. In the opener, he silenced the heart of the Jays’ batting order in the seventh inning, retiring Vladdy Guererro (Montreal, Que.) and Daulton Varsho on weak grounders and fanning the white-hot Matt Chapman.

The next day, after Chapman broke up Seattle rookie right-hander Easton McGee’s no-hit bid with a two-out seventh-inning double, Brash entered the game and kept it scoreless by vaporizing Varsho with 98 mph gas.

In Sunday’s extra-inning finale, the K-town Kid earned his first major league save, sandwiching strikeouts around a George Springer scratch single which put runners on the corners. Brash induced Guerrero to fly out to secure a wild 10-8 Mariners’ 10-inning victory.

The two losses aside, it was a memorable “homecoming” for the Bayridge Secondary grad, who had a healthy contingent of family and friends among the crowds that averaged 41,015 during the weekend series.

The aforementioned “conversion” was Brash’s switch from being a starting pitcher to working out of the bullpen. This came after he’d been dispatched last May to Tacoma, the Mariners’ triple-A farm team in the Pacific Coast League, with a bloated 7.65 ERA over five starts. Part of his problem was a sudden and unaccustomed unfamiliarity with the strike zone.

When he wasn’t walking batters, he was falling behind in counts. That’s a perilous pattern when a pitcher is facing Major League hitters. Brash’s marching orders in Tacoma included a job change. He was told that if wanted to return to the “show,” it would be as a relief pitcher.

“I’d never been a reliever,” Brash said as fans began filing into the Rogers Centre, “but I like the fact that you come to the ballpark every day knowing you could impact that day’s game. You have to be ready mentally and physically.”

Last season, coming out of the bullpen down the stretch, Brash shone. Over the final two months of the 2022 campaign, he carded a 2.30 ERA with 36 punch-outs in 26 1/3 innings and three more scoreless frames in the M’s abbreviated post-season run, which was highlighted by a spectacular and improbable come-from-way-behind win over the Jays in the elimination game of the best-of-three division playoff.

This year, Brash’s four-seam fastball ranks in the 92nd percentile in velocity among big-league pitchers. As for that ‘filthy” slider - to use the big-league vernacular - batters are hitting a paltry .175 against the pitch. In Seattle’s season opener back in early April, he struck out Cleveland’s best hitter, Jose Ramirez, on a sweeping slider that flew like a frisbee in a crosswind.

MLB.com hailed it as the “filthiest pitch of Opening Day.” Brash laughed when asked about the ridiculous trajectory.

“I don’t know how it moved that much, but I’m glad it did, because (Ramirez) is one of the better hitters around.”

Like any pitcher, Brash has experienced rough patches this season, but has elevated his game of late.

After Sunday’s play, he’s averaging a phenomenal two strikeouts per inning (32 strikeouts in 16 innings). Entering Sunday’s game against the Houston Astros he recorded a hold in a 3-1 win. He came on in the seventh with a run in, one out and a man on second. He struck out World Series MVP Jeremy Pena, allowed a single to Corey Julks and ended the threat by fanning Jake Meyers.

Brash had not allowed a home run as a reliever during his major-league career. That stretch of 52 appearances stood as the longest in the majors among pitchers with at least one appearance this season until Houston’s Kyle Tucker took Brash out of the yard after a missed call on what looked like strike three.

Accordingly, manager Servais pointed out that Dame Fortune hasn’t been Brash’s best friend this season.

“He hasn’t been the luckiest guy on this team,” Servais noted before referencing several instances where a bloop hit, a seeing-eye single or a missed strike call extended an inning.

“But that’s baseball,” the skipper added. “You forget those things when they happen and go right after the next batter. Matt does that, all good pitchers do that.”

And that’s why Servais feels Brash is a great fit in the “pivot” role, often replacing the starting pitcher at a key spot in the game.

“I love using him in those situations because he’s aggressive and goes right after the hitter with his best stuff,” said Servais.

“I guarantee there’s not one guy in the game that says, ‘Hey Matt Brash is on the mound. Let’s go get him.’”

If any St. Louis Cardinals had such a thought in mind prior to a recent relief appearance by the 6-foot-1 reliever, they soon had another thought in mind. He fanned Lars Nootbaar, hit Alec Burleson and then struck out the Cardinals back-to-back MVP combo of Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado swinging.

As for the soon-to-be 25-year-old pitcher (May 16) possibly stepping back into the rotation, his manager hinted it likely won’t be anytime soon.

“In a couple of years, I can see Matt closing games,” added Servais, now in his seventh season at the helm. “For now, we’re very happy with the job he’s doing in the pivot role.”

Rotation or bullpen, it doesn’t matter to Brash, who would pitch off the top of Seattle Space Needle if it meant staying with the major-league club.

“I’m living in the moment and enjoying the life of a big-league player,” said the onetime Kingston Thunder product who in time stands to earn a sizable raise on his current major-league minimum $725,000 salary. “I never want to take all this for granted. I worked too hard to get here.”

Patrick Kennedy is a retired Whig-Standard reporter. He can be reached at pjckennedy35@gmail.com