Pirates view reliever Heath Hembree's experience as 'unbelievably valuable' to bullpen

In the biggest moment of his baseball career, Heath Hembree remembers receiving the phone call in the bullpen, tossing a couple warm-up pitches and realizing that he needed to use the restroom.

“When they called and said I was in the game,” Hembree said, “I had to go to the bathroom because I was about to throw up.”

The stakes had something to do with Hembree’s nerves. It was the bottom of the 11th and Hembree was pitching for the Boston Red Sox in Game 3 of the 2018 World Series at the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Hembree tossed 25 pitches in a scoreless inning, getting Cody Bellinger to ground out to second, Yasiel Puig to fly out to right and, after walking Austin Barnes to put the winning run on base, striking out Chris Taylor.

“I can still remember going to the bathroom and being like, I’ve got to catch my breath, calm down and do some breathing exercises,” Hembree said. “I was like, ‘OK, I need to find myself and get into my own little zone and not look at everything else that was going on around me and just pitch.’ I get out there and it’s like you black out and go through the motion. It’s just muscle memory and then it’s over. It’s nuts. It’s a World Series game. You don’t want to be on the wrong end of that game.”

When the Pittsburgh Pirates signed Hembree to a one-year, $2.13 million free-agent contract this spring, they did so largely because of the 6-foot-4, 220-pound right-hander’s ability to pitch in high-leverage situations and share stories like that one with a young staff that largely lacks postseason experience.

That Hembree has won a World Series is “unbelievably valuable” to the bullpen, Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marin said, but so is what has since happened in Hembree’s career. He lost movement on the four-seam fastball that was his signature pitch. He has been traded and waived. And, through a deeper dive into advanced analytics, hopes to have rediscovered what made him a trusted reliever.

“For this guy to be able to come and share that knowledge with the relievers, that experience of being in the World Series, that experience of the highs and lows, that experience of making adjustments,” Marin said. “He wasn’t the same guy every time as he’s gone through his career. He’s made some adjustments to be able to continue having success.

“He’s letting our guys know that throughout your career there are adjustments that need to be made. Just staying with who you are and what you want to do is probably the most important thing, and he’s doing that right now. It’s been awesome to have someone like that, who exudes that quiet confidence and that quiet leadership that he has.”

Hembree, 33, realized after the truncated 2020 season that he had lost something on the ride of his fastball. Where it once snuck by hitters, they were now getting barrels on the ball and batting .325 against it.

“That was my starting point,” Hembree said. “Then I had to realize that my slider sucked, too.”

Hembree studied video and found that mechanical adjustments in his delivery had started small and gradually became drastic changes. The guy who tossed a scoreless inning in the World Series didn’t recognize the pitcher he’d become.

“When I looked back six, eight months,” Hembree said, “I was like, ‘Whoa. I’m way off from where I used to be.’”

Hembree made mechanical adjustments to his delivery, and his numbers improved last season. He posted spin rates on his fastball and curveball that ranked in the 92nd and 96th percentile, had a 36.9% whiff rate with his slider and averaged 14.5 strikeouts per nine innings.

“He had some really good strikeout numbers last year that we really liked, developed that slider that’s become a really good pitch for him,” Pirates bullpen coach Justin Meccage said. “We’ll see in terms of versatility and bounce-back and all that type stuff, but he’s a veteran guy who really knows how to get himself to go every night.”

Hembree believes that his post-World Series struggles have helped him develop thicker skin and made him mentally tougher, teaching him to explore his mechanics and focus on the physical side of the game.

“It sucks going through that, the grind and the struggles but it helped me mentally, got me thick skin and it helped me go back and figure out what was going on in the physical side of the game and try to develop and get better on that end,” Hembree said. “I feel like I’m at that point in my career where I’m in the middle of being mentally mature and physically mature at the same time.”

Hembree impressed Marin by electing to throw two live batting practice sessions before pitching in a Grapefruit League game, knowing what he needed to do to get right. Hembree faced the heart of the Baltimore Orioles’ batting order in the fourth inning on Saturday night, getting Trey Mancini to ground out to second, Anthony Santander to strike out looking and Austin Hays to go down swinging.

The Pirates have hinted that Hembree could be used in a high-leverage role, possibly as a setup man or even as a closer. His 11 career saves are one fewer than the combined total for Chris Stratton (nine) and David Bednar (three). Hembree is ready to embrace any opportunity.

“If you’re in the bullpen, you want a high-leverage job in the back end of the bullpen,” Hembree said. “You have to earn those spots. It comes with earning the trust of the people that make those decisions. You’ve got to go out and throw good and earn trust.”