McCarthyism: Brandon McCarthy On Facing The White Sox, The Danks Trade And Dealing With Weather

For this installment of Brandon McCarthy’s Blogiary™  (that’s a combination blog entry/diary), I thought it was important that he address the idea of facing his original club, the Chicago White Sox, for the first time since being traded here in 2006 and that he discuss how he handles the constant comparisons to John Danks since they were traded for one another. Also, McCarthy’s win over the White Sox in Texas was delayed twice by rain (at the start and again before the game became official). McCarthy is a creature of habit, though he’s made strides in not being quite as obsessive about details and routines, so I wondered how two delays affected him. Read on:

“If three years ago someone had told me that years later fans would still be talking about the Danks/McCarthy trade, I wouldn’t have believed it. Maybe I thought it would work out differently, or I may have just been naive, but whatever the case may be I still get a lot of questions about it. My answer is pretty simple: I don’t really care about it.

The trade doesn’t weigh on my mind, it doesn’t alter my day to day preparations, and it definitely doesn’t add any pressure on me. In fact, the only time it crosses my mind is when I’m asked about it by fans or media. The comparisons and questions have started to annoy me more and more as we go forward but understanding the inquisitive nature of the fans and media helps me to keep it in check.

The game of baseball is all about putting the past behind you and moving forward, and with this trade, it’s exactly what I’ve done. I went through a period of shock followed by being the new kid in class, and finally just being another guy on the team. Now it feels like the trade never happened and I couldn’t be happier with where I’m at. The only thing left to do is stay healthy, throw well, and see what happens.”

ME: The rain delays. For some reason, I think you have had an inordinate number of delays in or before your starts here. I have nothing to prove that. But I seem to remember at least one and thinking, oh, he’s such a creature of habit, this is going to cause issues. And I think you’ve pitched quite well in games where the rain threw off your routine. Anyway, this is a good way to get into how you prep for a start and how the extra time that gets associated with a delay impacts you. And then what did you do to keep yourself in position to pitch after the first delay. I mean, you ended up going about 45 minutes without pitching. The bottom of the fourth was a very long inning and then the delay. Certainly you weren’t doing anything to keep warm during the bottom half of the inning and I’m not sure what you were able to do during the delay because who knew how long it would be. I’d like you to take us through your night, the obstacles and how you dealt with them.

“I can think of a few times where I’ve had a start pushed back because of rain, but I just like you, refuse to look up how many in the name of laziness. It’s been more than one, so I guess that’s enough to make me an ‘expert’ on the subject.

The most annoying part about a delayed start is being forced to do math because of my routine. I work in ten minute increments, and count down from game time. When the game time gets moved, I have to do math to readjust everything and I hate math.

Other than that, a delay is a minor annoyance. I spend a little more time warming up my arm and keeping my body loose but most importantly trying to stay locked in mentally. Most pitchers work off of their routine and have it timed out to where the body knows when it’s time to get seriously focused. When you throw a wrench into that timing you have to find something that keeps you where you need to be mentally. Some people might use video, some might just sit and stare, and for me it’s just a mix of things. I mainly try to stay intense and a little angry and that keeps me dialed in.

In-game delays are a little different because you’ve hopefully already hit a groove and a comfort level. Now it becomes about basically keeping your arm fresh and warm, and not letting your mind wander too much. Usually any delay of more than an hour means you’re coming out of the game, so you know there’s only a certain amount of time in which you need to keep yourself ready. During the White Sox game, I stayed warm using heat packs and throwing in the cages. Once the delay ended, I had been throwing as if the game had continued normally, so getting back on track wasn’t an issue.”