There’s a kind of coiled grace in the way Kyle Drabek saunters toward the visitors’ bullpen at Hadlock Field, out there in the left-field shadow of a mini Green Monster.
It’s late afternoon under a still-hot sun, the time for pre-game stretching, a bit of jogging, the tossing of balls. Drabek puts his glove on the top of the bullpen fence, walks through the little gate, and heads straight to the garden hose lying directly opposite, the one used to douse a dusty mound.
This is not what Drabek has in mind.
He’s soon wielding the hose, trying to soak a teammate.
A big, impish grin flashes across Drabek’s face, the same look that had overtaken him a few minutes earlier when the subject of batting had come up.
Drabek might be one of the top pitching prospects for the Toronto Blue Jays, but he loves slugging almost as much. There’s reason, on this day, to have that top of mind.
When the opposing team is held scoreless, a lot of minor-league clubs reward the pitchers by letting them take batting practice in the ensuing days, something they normally wouldn’t get to do.
As the starting pitcher a few days earlier, Drabek had done more than simply work in a scoreless game. He’d pitched a no-hitter, the first time any member of the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats had ever done that through a full nine innings.
When it was over, Drabek’s teammates had mobbed him so eagerly he ended up with a bloody nose.
But still, no batting practice.
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