News
Aardsma finds a home in Seattle
Veteran reliever thriving in Mariners bullpen
By Patrick Mooney / Special to MLB.com
04/29/09 3:08 PM ET
CHICAGO -- David Aardsma never eased into this. His education as a young pitcher didn't come in the smaller markets forgotten by the national media.The 27-year-old reliever broke in with the 2004 Giants, an aging team built around Barry Bonds that was only two years removed from a National League pennant. Aardsma then pitched on both sides of Chicago before spending last season with the Red Sox.
"San Francisco -- it was a win-now attitude," Aardsma said. "Boston -- you lose a game and you feel like heads are gonna roll."
Aardsma was on his fifth big league team by the time he earned his first career save on April 10. He had gone 129 appearances without one, and then notched three in about two weeks.
"If you start at a place where there's no pressure, and they really give you time to develop, that's one thing that works," Aardsma said. "[But] I didn't just sit back and grow. I had to prove myself."
Aardsma was raised in Denver, but like countless other Cubs fans, he got hooked on the team through WGN, the television network that beamed Wrigley Field to the rest of the country.
"Harry Caray," Aardsma said, "that makes it really simple when you're growing up."
Aardsma enjoyed perhaps his best professional season in 2006 with the Cubs, where he went 3-0 with a 4.08 ERA in 45 appearances. Aardsma has been traded three times since then. That history doesn't matter to Seattle bullpen coach John Wetteland.
"I look at what a person is now," Wetteland said. "Age, where you've been, all that kind of stuff, it doesn't matter.
"If you put that much stock in, 'Oh, he was with the White Sox, and he was with the Giants,' [then] you start inquiring as to, 'Hey, why did they give up on him?' Now your opinions and what you see are biased."
To be clear, Aardsma also has the pedigree of a former first-round Draft pick. He isn't a typical journeyman. The 6-foot-4 right-hander did help Rice University win the 2003 College World Series. But Aardsma hasn't enjoyed much job security and knows he's pitched well enough -- and bad enough -- to get traded.
Aardsma has an advocate in Wetteland, who understands what it takes after saving 330 games in his 12-year career.
"[Aardsma's] around people who believe in him. That's pretty big," Wetteland said. "I lived this, so I know -- you can be told that there's a lot of things wrong with your stuff and that you have to do this and that and change all this kind of stuff. It just doesn't work out.
"But [then] someone tells you: 'You know what, I really like what you got, and we're gonna use it and have fun with it.' You become a completely different pitcher."
Aardsma -- who has shaved more than three-and-a-half runs off the 5.55 ERA he carried around Boston last season -- now finds himself on a surprise first-place team as a trusted late-inning reliever.
"That was the big theme in Spring Training: 'We'll give everybody a chance. If you want a job, you can earn a job,'" Aardsma said. "And they've held true to it."
Patrick Mooney is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
