The legend of Daniel Bard was born three years ago at this time. A first-round pick in the 2006 draft, Bard made his professional debut in the Florida Instructional League. And there, the young pitcher made heads turn.
Word circulated quickly. Bard was firing his fastball at — and in excess of — 100 miles per hour. Everyone who witnessed him throw was dazzled by the apparent effortlessness of his ability to generate incredible velocity.
Though he threw no more than a couple innings that fall, the right-hander’s reputation had been created. A hype machine went into motion that made it appear that Bard was on the fast track to the majors.
The pitcher himself got caught up in the notion, something that became easy to do since college teammate Andrew Miller, who was drafted by the Tigers in the first round of the ’06 draft, made his big-league debut that year.
“I had pitched side-by-side with [Miller] the past three years and thought, ‘If he can do it, I can do it this year,’ ” Bard admitted. “I kind of went in my first full season probably looking a little too much toward the goal of arriving in the big leagues. I was like, ‘OK, the minor leagues is just a stepping stone.’ I was kind of looking past putting in the work, as far as the pitching goes and the learning. It hurt me.”
Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine more dramatic career swings than what Bard has experienced over the last three years. Already, he has gone from first-round talent to can’t-miss prospect to no-chance washout back to prospect and finally, now, to a position where the Red Sox will not shy from him in the playoffs.
What he might deliver in the postseason is a complete unknown. But the mere fact the flamethrower will enter into the Red Sox’ late-inning equation during the playoffs qualifies as an almost miraculous development.
A 'MISERABLE' DEBUT
Humility came quickly.
In retrospect, Bard admits that he was too ambitious. But at the time, it seemed so easy for him to use college teammate Miller’s career as a roadmap.
“People [said] right away, in spring training in ’07, before the bad season, they [told] me, ‘Hey, your college teammate is in the big leagues.’ I said, ‘That’s his journey, this is mine,’” said Bard. “In the back of my head, I was like, ‘I want to be there this year.’ That became my focus.”
And so, each outing became a chance not just to attack opposing hitters, but also to prove that he should push forward to the next level, and the next, and the next. Bard was assigned out of spring training to High-A Lancaster, but there were early warning signs.
He recalls his velocity dropping into the low-90s, in part due to a miscommunication about his mechanics. The team had talked with Bard about getting more on top of his breaking ball, primarily through the position of his fingers on the ball. The right-hander took that to mean delivery the ball in more over-the-top fashion, something that he tried to achieve according by tilting his body and pulling his body towards first base.
His command immediately began to falter. He felt pain in his elbow. He tried to pitch through it, refusing to tell the team’s training staff, and his velocity dropped. He made just five horrific starts, allowing 23 runs (15 earned) while walking 22 (compared to just nine strikeouts) and giving up 21 hits in 13.1 innings.
“I was miserable. I was on the mound trying to find an arm slot and a way to throw my pitches that wouldn’t hurt my elbow,” he said. “I thought maybe if I started the season I could pitch through it and it would go away. That wasn’t the case.”
He was shut down for three weeks, and sent from Lancaster to the safe haven of extended spring training in Fort Myers. When he was ready to go out on his next assignment, the Sox demoted him to Low-A Greenville of the South Atlantic League, a level that first-round college pitchers typically skip.
Bard didn’t mind the reassignment, since it meant that he would be close to his North Carolina-based family. The Sox were hopeful that Bard could build confidence by dominating younger hitters.
Instead, his poor results continued, and confusion reigned as Bard endured a 6.42 ERA while walking
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