Humber finally finds his aim by loosening his grip

First, a big thanks to Alex Prewitt and Amelia Rayno for handling our Twins coverage Wednesday, allowing La Velle and I to work ahead on some projects.

I wrote about Phil Humber for today's paper, and he's one of the nicest guys you'll meet anywhere. Catching up with him last month at Target Field, it was like seeing an old friend, even though he didn't spend that much time in the majors with the Twins.

Humber is 8-4 with a 2.69 ERA for the White Sox heading into Thursday night's start against the Twins.

"There are a lot of people who are happy for him because he worked so hard when he was here," Twins General Manager Bill Smith said. "We just ran out of time. We could not option him back [to the minors], and he became a free agent. That's one of the challenges with the option system."

Humber, 28, was the third pick in the 2004 draft. The Mets got him one spot after the Tigers selected Justin Verlander. Humber had big leverage as a college junior, and the Mets signed him to a major league contract.

The Mets packaged Humber, along with Kevin Mulvey, Deolis Guerra and Carlos Gomez in the February 2008 trade for Johan Santana. Now that he's having all this success, Humber feels a little sheepish about his time with the Mets, Twins and Royals.

Humber was his own worst enemy. Here's another quote I couldn't fit into my story:

"I think when that happens -- when it's going good, there's no problem, but when it starts to not to go your way -- then you don't have anything to go to. And for me, I've been a Christian since I was a little kid, but I'd lost sight of really what my identity is, and that's being a child of God and just really getting back to that and allowing baseball to be in its place.

"Now, I'm able to enjoy what I'm doing, and regardless if this [success] would have happened, I'm a lot better off for it."

I've heard this from other players, too. They have a hard time enjoying baseball because they're so consumed with trying to stay in the majors. The game is so cloaked in failure, it's dangerous for players to make it their whole identity, especially the ones on the fringe.

I'm not trying to make a religious point here. Humber, a soft-spoken righthander from Carthage, Texas, used his faith to help re-discover his focus. Other players might have different approaches, but Humber finally got his priorities in order, loosening his grip, and only then did the baseball start traveling where he'd been aiming the whole time.