FORT MYERS, Fla. – As you might suspect, when Blake Parker goes golfing, it takes him a few seconds on the tee box to settle into his stance and stop fidgeting with his driver.
"Oh yeah, I've got a waggle," he said. "I do that a lot."
He has had plenty of practice. Parker, the lone veteran reliever the Twins invested in this offseason, owns one of the most distinct windups in the major leagues, a choreographed ballet of bends and twitches and jiggles and jerks, all finished off with an exaggerated sigh. And when the floor show ends, his arm raises and a fastball, usually with some sink to it, comes racing toward the plate, as coldly efficient as the opening act is superfluous.
Parker didn't set out to be the jittery pitcher. It just sort of happened.
"It started out as just a step back [toward the rubber], something to help me come set," he said. "It's kind of evolved over the years to an all-around motion, just me getting comfortable and then down."
But Parker didn't develop this habit, this series of twists and tremors, out of whimsy. It serves a legitimate purpose.
"I'm not just out there flailing around," he said. "I'm out there to get outs, not to look cool."
How he looks is the point, actually. In addition to a fastball and a curve, Parker throws a split-fingered changeup, thrown with an extreme wide grip that flexes the muscles his forearm. Parker said he had reason to suspect that batters could pick up tiny clues in his windup, that he was tipping his pitches with a conventional motion.