Matt Albers is becoming a thing

Maybe you noticed Matt Albers this weekend. Maybe it was Saturday afternoon when he blazed a 96 mph fastball on the inside black to freeze Carlos Santana and end an eighth inning jam, or when he was screaming epithets as he stalked off the mound in the eighth, throwing his gum and then high-fiving his entire dugout, even though he wound up going out for another inning, collecting three strikeouts over two innings in all.

His teammates certainly noticed. John Danks jokingly quipped “I think you might have anger issues,” to a suddenly peaceful and content Albers as he retreated to his locker after the game, and Chris Sale took time out of his post-game media session to gush. 

“He’s got his pitch back,” Sale said about Albers Saturday. “He looks as good as I’ve ever seen him. His two-seamer looks like a changeup coming in there 95-96 mph. It’s awesome. It’s fun to watch. He’s fired up and he should be.”

Maybe it didn’t take you nearly as long. Albers is, after all, on a 23-game scoreless streak that started last August. He hasn’t allowed an earned run in 24 games. But maybe you’re like me and him blowing through the heart of Cleveland order on short notice, in Saturday’s blistering cold, with previously unseen mid-90s zip on his slinged, sinking heater to finally enough to catch your eye and wonder if he needs to be promoted to a larger role.

“His pitch” is the notable switch in Albers, since the streak itself — which has included him throwing 23.1 innings, striking out 19, allowing 26 total baserunners, and opposing hitters posting a .247 slugging percentage against him — never did much to alter Albers role on the team as a multi-inning reliever who could keep games the Sox were losing within a reasonable distance.

“When he came with us last year he started out basically as a long guy,” Ventura said Saturday. “But he’s really turned into a guy you can count on for tough outs, things like that.”

Part of that was Albers missing three months with a broken finger suffered in an early-season melee with the Royals in April of 2015, shoving him farther behind in the relief hierarchy than he could make up in the second half alone. But surely an equal or larger part of that calculus is that he’s Matt Albers, a 33-year-old run-of-the-mill sinkerballer at both superficial and longer glances.

Albers hasn’t had a bad season since 2011, but hasn’t had a healthy one since 2013. But with less than 7 K/9 for his career, and a 107 cFIP, (and no real recent uptick) he is a guy you can justify sticking in the pen and hoping his groundball tendencies (54 percent for his career) pay off — especially in a place like U.S. Cellular Field — far more than you can trust him with high-leverage work. It’s more of a credit to Robin Ventura rather than a curiosity that a hot streak did not prompt him to promote Albers over arms with better stuff. But instead of a question of how long an improbably excellent stretch goes on before it gains credence as a pattern, his opening salvo of 2016 presents a question of whether he is a different, or just fully healthy pitcher.

“Sinker-wise, he’s made his way back where he’s got a little more velocity to it this year than he did last year,” Ventura said Saturday. “Spins it, comes in tough situations and get an out.”

‘Sinker-wise,’ is an amusing qualifier. Albers has been flirting with throwing his sinker around 70 percent of the time for his entire relief career. He has other pitches, but seems to throw them just to have thrown them. The sinker earns his paycheck, and early on, it’s as much as 3.5 mph faster than it was last season when he was coming back from his brawl-related absence.

“I was a little bit surprised that my velocity was up that much,” Albers said. “It’s good. I’m just trying to maintain. I’m just trying to stay within myself, not try to throw too hard. Last year, my velo wasn’t up but I wasn’t overthrowing and had success — just trying to mix those both together.”

This isn’t unprecedented territory for Albers; rather it’s a spot-on return to the guy who was strangely effective from 2011 through 2013. Which, again, isn’t a frontline reliever, but probably closer to the guy that Jake Petricka should be — a right-hander who bullies hitters by pounding the zone with his heavy sinking fastball in short bursts — than Petricka himself is right now. In person, Albers sounds like a guy who wants the ball late but knows it’s an uphill climb.

Lead Photo Credit: Rick Scuteri // USA Today Sports Images