DUNEDIN, Fla. — "Establish your fastball" is the baseball cliché equivalent of football's "establish the running game." It's something perceived to be important but isn't always necessary or the best plan of attack, especially in predictable situations.
Last season, probably the worst of Jeremy Hellickson's career, he focused too much on establishing his fastball early in games, he said Friday. He wants to get away from that in 2016 and Friday was the first example.
Hellickson started the Phillies' 12-11 win over the Braves in Clearwater and settled in to strike out five batters over two innings after allowing back-to-back doubles to begin the game. Ender Inciarte's leadoff double was not well-struck, but Erick Aybar's was. It was then that Hellickson realized he should probably turn to the offspeed stuff.
"After the first couple batters, I [settled in]," Hellickson said. "Fastball command was a little shaky; it's gotta get better. After those first two batters, I kinda locked in, started pitching backwards a little bit."
Both of Hellickson's first-inning Ks came on curveballs, and at least two others were on changeups. He threw all five of his pitches in spring training start No. 2: four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, cutter, curveball and changeup.
He said if this was last year, he may have struggled more because even when the fastball command wasn't there, he would have tried too hard to make it work.
"Last year, I probably tried to command my fastball a little too much too early," said Hellickson, who had a 5.33 first-inning ERA last season. "I think I just tried to establish my fastball early in games. And games like this, I probably would have kept forcing it, trying to command it instead of going to my offspeed early like I did today.
"I want to try to get back to that this year — more changeups, more curveballs."
Hellickson threw his four-seam fastball last season about 10 percent more than he threw it in 2014, and he threw the changeup a career-low 22.1 percent of the time. Historically, his changeup has been his best pitch, limiting opponents to a .222 batting average on more than 1,000 at-bats ending in that pitch. He attributed last year's reduced usage to opting for those early heaters instead. And opponents hit .324 last season against his four-seam fastball with a ridiculously high .590 slugging percentage.
On Friday, manager Pete Mackanin liked what he saw out of the Phils' potential opening-day starter.
"He looks like he knows how to pitch," Mackanin said. "He wasn't happy when he gave up that run, which we like to see, even in spring training."
Hellickson was brought in to be a veteran stabilizer in the Phillies' rotation. To those who accuse the Phillies of tanking, look at the acquisition of Hellickson, who's 28 years old, a free agent next season and making $7 million this year. A team trying to lose 100-plus games to finish with the top pick again doesn't bother trading a minor-leaguer for him or doing the same for Charlie Morton. General manager Matt Klentak raised the floor of the Phillies' rotation. It doesn't necessarily mean they'll win more games in 2016, but the starters will almost certainly average more innings per game than last year's major-league worst figure of 5.5.
Another reason Hellickson is here is to put less pressure on young pitchers like Aaron Nola and Jerad Eickhoff. It also lessens the need to rush prospects like Jake Thompson, Zach Eflin and Mark Appel to the bigs.
Hellickson is just 28, but he feels like almost an elder statesman with the Phillies.
"The game's getting younger," Hellickson said. "There's guys getting called up at 21, 22 years old. So 28, I don't feel old, but 28 is kinda old in this game right now."
Hellickson's already experienced a lot in his pro career. A fourth-round pick out of high school in 2005, he was Baseball America's sixth-ranked overall prospect headed into 2011 and he lived up to the hype initially, posting a 2.95 ERA in 29 starts with the Rays and being named AL Rookie of the Year.
He's be a solid resource for some of the Phils' top pitching prospects who will be dealing with some pretty lofty outside expectations.
"I'm just trying to get to know the (young) guys and answer any questions they have," Hellickson said. "They know they just have to keep doing what they've done to get here and not worry about all that other stuff."