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In a matter of a couple of weeks, the 25-year-old Seattle Mariners prospect pitched in the Arizona Fall League championship game, announced his engagement to Kerry Thomson, grand-niece of Island baseball legend Bobby Thomson, and was promoted by the Mariners to the team’s major league 40-man roster.
That’s a lot of action in a short span. Even for a guy used to closing out baseball games for a living.
In fact, the Port Richmond resident is just now getting a few days to unwind at home. And even that hasn’t been as simple as he’d hoped.
“I was going to take some time off from the gym, and just kind of hang out a little,” the former Curtis HS and St. John’s University star explained. “But everyone else is busy working, and I really can’t find much to do.”
So. What's it like pitching in High Desert?
“I let it get in my head,” he admitted of the wildness problems he suffered through at Adelanto during the 2008 season.
The issues began as soon as he showed up in the rarefied air of the bone-dry Mojave Desert town 2,900 feet above sea level.
“Guys who were already there were telling me how easily the ball jumps out of the park and how careful you have to be pitching to hitters, and I started nibbling,” he said.
Nibbling led to missing the plate.
Missing the plate caused him to pitch behind in the count. Working from behind forced Varvaro to throw the ball down the middle.
You know the rest of the story.
“I was trying to work through it, but I lost my confidence,” he said. “Then my mechanics got messed up, and I couldn’t get straightened out. It was a real mental thing.”
That’s when the Mariners decided to move him to the closer’s role. The change seems to suit him.
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