Clemente’s Legacy: Edwin Díaz fueled by the strength of Puerto Rico
As the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria approaches, La Vida Baseball will highlight the way today’s Puerto Rican ballplayers lived up to the saintly Clemente’s legacy in helping lift their island during the recovery process by giving their fellow Boricuas something to cheer about with their play on the field and, more importantly, by their efforts back home.
By all accounts, 2018 should have been Edwin Díaz’s most difficult season of his career. In September 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall in his native Puerto Rico. It was the worst natural disaster on record to hit the small island, and the deadliest Atlantic hurricane in over a decade.
Díaz returned to the Daguao neighborhood of his hometown of Naguabo even though teammate Robinson Canó was quick to reassure him that he had a place to stay and train with him in the Dominican Republic. For most ballplayers, the offseason is an opportunity to rest and train.
Many players retreat to sunny enclaves in Florida or California or to the comfort of their hometowns. After the beautiful island sustained billions of dollars in damages, Díaz’s hometown was no longer the peaceful place that had brought him such peace in the past.
“It was tough,” Díaz said of his homecoming this offseason. “I’d never seen Puerto Rico like that. When I came back, I stayed in the house with my father, and we didn’t have any electricity, but we had a lot of people help us.”
The lack of electricity meant that Diaz needed to time his workouts and throwing regimens. He worked specifically on his fastball command during workouts that could be held only during daylight hours as Puerto Rico dealt with power outages.
When he wasn’t training or spending time with his family, he was helping the community that had always supported him. He told ESPN’s Shannon Drayer that he “went door-to-door making water deliveries, in addition to taking part in fundraising celebrity softball games.”
Controlled Fire
With all these offseason factors, it would have been understandable for the 24-year-old to struggle this season. Instead, Díaz’s 2018 has been one for the record books. And he’s not done yet.
He has led the majors in saves for most of the year. He already broke the Mariners’ single-season record for saves. A day later he hit his pre-season goal of 50 saves, with 32 games left to play.
By all metrics he has been one of, if not the, most valuable relievers in baseball. As of Aug. 27, he was striking out a staggering 44.8% of the hitters he faced, the most of any reliever in the American League. There’s a chance that he could break Francisco Rodriguez’s single-season saves record. He’s likely to earn his fair share of Cy Young Award votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Díaz’s ability to overpower hitters is nothing new. He has been dominant since his Mariners debut in 2016. But the young closer often had a tendency to grow erratic. It was easy to tell within just a few batters if Díaz had his stuff that day.
He would become easily flustered with runners on-base and would struggle to find his mechanics in the midst of a challenging outing. He had fire, but sometimes those flames would burn him.
This year the fire is still there, but it’s controlled, concentrated, as if Díaz has solidified the narrow walls of a chute that stretches from the mound to home plate.
“Last year I was a little more excited on the mound,” he said. “Now I just try to go pitch by pitch, and to do my best with each one. Last year I was thinking about finishing the hitter during the first pitch, but I changed my mind to focus on pitch by pitch, and I’ve had a lot of success.”
Best When It’s Close
The Mariners have played in an astonishing number of one-run games, but fortunately Díaz is well-suited for those situations. Once a promising starting pitcher, he has fully embraced the role of reliever.
“It was fun starting, but relieving is better,” he says. “It’s more fun coming into the game, a tie game, winning by one run. I like pitching with that pressure.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if his resolve on the mound and newfound calm in high leverage situations came as the result of facing far greater obstacles than a 3-0 count this offseason.
“The first couple months were tough for us,” Díaz said of the impact Hurricane Maria had on him this winter. “No electricity, no nothing. Working out like that pumped me up a little bit more, and that helped me this year to mentally prepare and be ready to go.”
Although Díaz isn’t exactly able to deliver water door-to-door right now, his incredible season has brought joy to his family, and the people of Puerto Rico.
“They’re having some fun this year seeing me pitch, seeing my success,” he said.
Featured Image: Stephen Brashear / Getty Images Sport