Berríos looks to bury past following struggles of 2022

Challenges physical and mental after WBC nightmare

Berríos believes the emotional energy he took into the tournament will carry through into the regular season. At the very least, he came out of it in one piece

First innings killed José Berríos last season. Not kind to him at the World Baseball Classic, either.

Unsure where the amiable righthander’s heart beats harder — with the Toronto Blue Jays or the Puerto Rican national team — but a heart of darkness ushered Berríos out of Miami on the weekend and back into the bosom of his MLB club’s spring training bivouac.

He wants to put his disastrous start against Venezuela and his country’s subsequent quarterfinal elimination by Mexico out of his mind. Somewhere deep into the mental beyond, where Berríos has already banished his desolate and aberrant 2022 campaign: “Last year has passed away already. We want to turn that page.”

Uh-uh, not so fast. Inquiring minds were hardly going to let it go at first sighting of Berríos Monday morning — although he’d actually thrown his first bullpen upon resumption of camp the previous day, which had gone unobserved by media scrutineers attending an away game in Tampa.

Have to feel some pity for the poor guy, up against a scrum wall outside the Jays clubhouse, a tad reminiscent of the executed Imperial Romanov family riddled with bullets by Bolsheviks. And what’s he going to say about his WBC performance that went wildly awry — six runs (five earned) on 38 pitches in just over an inning of work?

What he did say: “Because this is baseball.” The one-size-fits-all axiom for the vicissitudes of a sport that can make your spirit soar one day — one season — and plunge you into despair the next.

“Spring training we use to work, to improve our skill,” Berríos tried to explain of the atmospheric difference between a mellow camp and the intensely dramatic WBC stage, particularly for baseball-proud Latin nations. “But that game” — four runs scored in the first inning — “forget about working on whatever you need to work on, just go out there and pitch and compete. We tried. Obviously, they (did) better than me, but I think overall I felt pretty well. I was trying to follow the plan and execute the pitches. They got a lot of runs, but I felt like was throwing with good life and the movement was pretty good.”

That’s the view the team is leaning into as well for the 28-year-old: not as ghastly as it seemed down there in LoanDepot Park (hideous name).

Pitching coach Pete Walker admits his own heart seized a bit when he heard the bare bones of Berríos’s pitching line. He breathed a sigh of relief after actually watching that game on replay: “I think it was a lot more about pitch selection than it was about execution and stuff. I just didn’t care for his approach or game-planning. That’s something we’ll discuss. But as far as velocity, as far as movement, as far as spin on his breaking ball, everything was there. He just got into a little bit of a rut.”

They’ve been trying to fix Berríos for the better part of a year, since his horrid opening day start on April 8, 2022 against the Texas Rangers, in front of a jam-packed Rogers Centre crowd that expected to see the Berríos who’d unspooled a bunch of gems through a dozen starts after being acquired from Minnesota at the ’21 trade deadline. It was a thirdof-an-inning bummer: three hits, two walks, four runs. Look away.

But OK, an untimely stinker. Not to worry. This was the fellow in whom Toronto had invested a seven-year, $131-million (U.S.) contract extension. Their putative ace. Except he never did sort himself out, despite the swirl of mechanical adjustments and tweaks attempted, as his self-confidence was crushed. The more they tinkered, the harder he tried, the further his flummox swelled. At the exhausting end of the worst season of his career, Berríos had posted a crooked ERA of 5.23 and given up more hits (199) than any other pitcher in the American League.

This isn’t just about last year’s travails, though. It’s about how Berríos reconstitutes his pitching for this season and how far the Jays can rely on him in a starting rotation that isn’t so fathomless, Berríos sinking to No. 3 or No. 4 on the roto dial. That story arc will continue all year and lord help the Jays if Alek Manoah, Kevin Gausman or new addition Chris Bassitt goes down with a significant injury.

The Berríos reboot began in November, a month earlier than usual, when he started playing catch, then cleaving to the mechanical adjustment details imparted for off-season cramming: maintain a steady eye level with the plate to prevent his head from dropping down or leaning to either side; align the spine; stay consistently aggressive driving off the back leg; keep the glove tight to the inside of the body to avoid flying open and dragging the release point.

He’s also introduced a slider to his arsenal (actually two versions of it) which he debuted at the WBC: “I had a chance to throw that new pitch and I feel comfortable, so I want to incorporate it.”

Berríos believes the emotional energy he took into the tournament will carry through into the regular season. At the very least, he came out of it in one piece, which is more than can be said for Puerto Rican compatriot Edwin Díaz, the Mets all-star closer who suffered a season-ending knee injury, and Astros superstar José Altuve, whose broken thumb requires surgery and likely a two-month layoff.

Just the sort of hellish consequences that drive fidgety franchises crazy. Berríos waves off the risk: “It can happen at home playing with my kid, you know?”

The bad memories will fade, just like the platinum hair dye Berríos adopted along with his Puerto Rican teammates.

“Maybe two more haircuts.”