Former Texas Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis joined The Dallas Morning News’ SportsDay Rangers podcast with longtime beat reporter Evan Grant and Rangers senior advisor and team historian John Blake.
They discussed his career with the Rangers, what he’s seen in the organization in his role as a special assistant in the front office and how he tries to help develop young pitchers.
Here are some highlights of the conversation, edited lightly for clarity.
You can listen to the full conversation here.
Rangers
Question: Things were very disjointed when you were a rookie and you saw very dysfunctional rosters, but then you saw the best rosters in 2010 and 2011. How important is chemistry in optimizing a team’s success?
Colby Lewis: I think it’s huge, right? I’m not really learning it, but I see it kind of happening with my daughter in volleyball right now, and how all the girls are having fun, and unity is really good. These girls are playing well. I think it’s like anything else, right? It’s like a family atmosphere. If you have everybody kind of bouncing off each other, having ideas, talking to each other after plays, doing all that kind of stuff. It just kind of helps each other hold each other accountable. I think, being a part of in those older teams, there’s so many single voices, and they kind of just want one thing out of themselves. They don’t know where they’re going to be at next year. So it gets kind of individualized. It doesn’t make for a good unity. I always told myself, no matter where I played or where I was at, you try to get to know the guys the best you can. Spend time with them, be around them because everybody goes through different things, and you don’t know what’s bothering them. It’s kind of learning each guy’s personality, and see how you can kind of fit in and relate to them. I think that’s the biggest thing about a team, is just trying to relate to each guy. So I think that’s the biggest thing that will help impact guys off the field and on the field.
Question: You were kind of that leader in the clubhouse and a recurring theme here is Nathan Eovaldi’s impact on the pitching staff. What have you observed about Nathan and his impact on the pitching staff?
Lewis: Well, I think it’s huge, right? I went through my share of injuries and it sucks. I think that’s the biggest thing, whether you’re healthy or not, you’re constantly talking with guys and constantly relating to him, talking to him about pitching. CJ Wilson was a guy that loved to dissect everything. I felt like I learned a lot from him in a lot of aspects. It’s not the way I pitched, but I learned different approaches, and how he thought about the game, and how he thought about hitters. Talking with these young guys, and I tell them, “You can let it go in one ear and out the other, but if you like one thing, then pick it out and then try to incorporate it. If not, then if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you.” I think that’s the big thing that Eovaldi does is that he not only leads by example when he goes out there on the mound, and he’s still kind of got that old school mentality. That’s the type of motivation and pushing of each other that a good staff does. If you go out there as a reliever, that guy throws a scoreless inning, boom, next time it’s your job. You got the seventh, I got the eighth. Let’s go. So I think that a lot of those guys are are seeing that, and he’s doing that by example for sure.
Texas Rangers relief pitcher Colby Lewis (48) throws against the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 4 of the American League Division Series at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Monday October 12, 2015.
The Dallas Morning News
Question: Now that you instruct young pitchers, how does your experience with all the adversity you faced help?
Lewis: I got to talk a little bit with Marc Church. He was kind of down in the dumps a little bit. But I mean it’s kind of one of those things. I always call it a speed bump, you know? We push our bodies so much that eventually something breaks. You hope it lasts a long time before it breaks. But some guys, they break and then come back. I was one of those guys. But I think the biggest thing is just show up every day. There’s going to be days that are really, really hard, and you don’t want to go the ballpark and you don’t want to do the same things, all your exercises and all that kind of stuff is just boring and it gets monotonous, and you just kind of have to push that aside on your bad days, and then your good days you take advantage of. You kind of try to take that same mindset into every day. Eventually, months go by and you’re back healthy and back to doing what you love to do and that is being on the field.
Question: Who do you see in the Rangers minor league system that really stuck out to you and what do you think about the overall health of the system right now?
Lewis: It’s good. I got to go in the lab, and hadn’t been in the lab in a while, there in Surprise. And it was absolutely amazing. These younger guys have so much mechanical stuff and everything else to be able to … if you can’t get better, I think it’s your fault. There’s so much to see. It’s wild to me the amount of information that these guys have now, and I think that’s why you’re seeing a lot of these guys throw a lot harder, because they’re able to say, “Well, your hips aren’t here, and your arm angle’s in this way.” They’re really transitioning these guys to get absolutely the most and the best they can out of the everybody’s body. I got to see a couple of our younger draftees, like Evan Siary, AJ Russell, those guys, college guys, both those guys have a really good understanding on pitching, because they got to pitch in basically the SEC and pitch against higher talented batters and all that kind of stuff. But Caden Scarborough is one of those guys who had another good year, so he’s on the younger side too.
It’s trying to get them to simplify it a little bit more, because they do have so much knowledge and so much of the of all the trackmans and everything else. It’s just you find some of these young kids, they’ll throw one pitch in the bullpen and turn around be like, “Oh, what was the vert on this? And what was that?” I’m like get into a rhythm, stand over the mound and throw me three straight strikes. I don’t care what that thing says. It’s trying to get them to to understand, when they go on the field, they can’t be thinking about, “Oh, man, I’m when I go back and look at that, I got to look at that pitch, because that thing was nasty.” Did you get the guy out or not? That’s what I want to know. That’s the thing, is trying to get them to understand the game in their way, but simplify it in the best way that makes them good when they’re attacking guys.
Question: Rangers haven’t had a great track record of developing starting pitching, but Jack Leiter is making that adjustment. What have you seen in him?
Lewis: I think exactly what we were just kind of talking about, I think he was probably trying to do too much, too early, because of who he was and how hard he threw, and how good his stuff was. I think he was just trying to be a little bit too fine and that’s what created a lot of the walks. I think now he’s gotten the point where, my fastball plays if it’s middle, middle away. I think that’s what you’re seeing now, is that he’s really learned how to attack and stay on the attack and not pitch from behind in a lot of counts. So I think that’s the biggest key, because his stuff’s been there the last couple of years. We’ve all seen it, and I think it’s just the mentality now of like, “You’re not going to beat me now, I’m not going to beat myself.”
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