Tyler Cloyd sat in a chair next to his locker on Opening Night, answering questions about his perfect stand-in performance for suspended IronPigs starter Dave Bush.
"Stand up," Kevin Frandsen said with a grin, chastising the Triple-A rookie for sitting during the interview. "That's not how we do things here."
That's about the only "mistake" the 25-year-old right hander has made so far in the 2012 season.
Cloyd has been nothing short of spectacular in his first eight starts between both Reading and the IronPigs. He won three of his four starts at Reading, allowing five earned runs and 22 hits in 25 innings (a 1.80 ERA), and in his only no-decision he gave up a lone hit in six shutout innings.
With the IronPigs, the 6-foot-2, 190-pounder became the first Phillies farmhand since at least 1999 (when game-by-game statistics became available) to win his first four starts, and his numbers have been even better —12 hits and two earned runs in 26 innings for an 0.69 ERA.
Combined, he's 7-0 with a 1.24 ERA in his eight starts.
"This is by far the best start I've ever had in my career," the Phillies' 18th-round pick in 2008 said.
"Could anyone have predicted this? No, not really," Gorman Heimueller, the Phillies minor league pitching coordinator, said. "But I just enjoy watching him pitch."
Cloyd ended 2011 strong, posting a 2.30 ERA in his final 10 starts at Reading. But despite a 33-21 career mark with a 3.63 ERA over his first four pro seasons, he still was a relative unknown in an organization deep in young pitching talent. However, at the suggestion of Paul Menhart, Harrisburg's pitching coach who worked with Cloyd in the Arizona Fall League, Cloyd made a slight adjustment to his mechanics.
"He brought it up and we ran with it, and it's helped me tremendously," Cloyd said. "It's helped me keep the ball down, helped me locate my pitches a lot better, especially my off-speed stuff, and has made my cutter that much better."
Clearwater pitching coach Dave Lundquist helped him develop his cutter in 2009.
The cutter has become "the pitch that's brought me to where I am today."
"Not only has he learned to throw it, but he can throw it on both sides of the plate, [and] he can throw it off the plate when he wants to," Heimueller said. "The change-up's gotten better, and his breaking ball that he uses just enough to get everyone off his other pitches has gotten better, and he's not afraid to throw the ball over the plate."
That's what Cloyd does best. He came into the season averaging less than two walks per nine innings, and went 28 innings this year before issuing a two-out pass in the fourth inning of his fifth start. That snapped a string of 130 consecutive batters he had faced without issuing a walk, dating back to the final 26 batters he faced in 2011.
"You know he's not going to beat himself," Heimueller said. "He may go out there and get hit, because he's going to throw it around the plate. There were some balls hit hard [Wednesday], but you look at all the good ones, that's what they do. You look to the Cliffs and the Docs and the Coles, and it's 'I'm gonna' challenge hitters. I'm gonna' throw my good stuff, and I'm going to get them to put the ball in play.' That's what [Cloyd's] done."
"I've always prided myself on throwing strikes and not walking guys," Cloyd said. "I've get really mad at myself when I walk guys, even if I get three ball counts. I like to go out there and get hitters out within the first four pitches and keep my pitch-count down … I want them to attack them and make them hit my pitch."
Cloyd actually spent 1 1/2 years in the bullpen, beginning with the start of 2011 at Clearwater. Heimueller said the move wasn't a reflection on Cloyd's performance — he was 19-13 with a 3.65 ERA in his first 41 career starts — but simply a numbers problem.
"We had the Jarred Cosarts, the Brody Colvins, the Trevor Mays, [Jonathan] Pettibone, Julio Rodriguez — five young, younger arms," Heimueller said. "We knew he could start, [and] he took it well."
Cloyd, who got promoted to Reading as a reliever, used the shift as a learning experience.
"Now down the road if someone asks me to go to the bullpen, I know how to adjust to it," Cloyd said. It's kind of a win-win situation for me."
Ryan Edell's promotion to the IronPigs in early June opened up a spot in the Reading rotation for Cloyd, and he was 6-3 with a 2.81 ERA in 17 starts the rest of the way. Still, when Baseball America compiled their organizational list of prospects, Cloyd was nowhere to be found.
Not that it bothered him.
"I definitely don't like a lot of attention — I'm not a spotlight guy," said Cloyd, who is 15-4with a 2.32 ERA in 30 starts over the last two seasons. "I like to fly under the radar with whatever I'm doing."
He's definitely on a lot of radar screens now. Cloyd's performance so far has led to speculation that Cloyd could follow a path similar to that of Vance Worley last year if the need arises in Philadelphia, although he's not the only candidate — Scott Elarton's comeback (5-1, 2.06 ERA) puts him in the discussion as well.
"There'd be a lot opinions — Ryno, Rod [Nichols], the people that come in, the Dallas Greens, the Ed Wades, [Steve] Noworyta, Joe Jordan, Benny Looper, scouts that come in — there's really a lot of different opinions," Heimueller said. "It would be tough. I'm not going to tell you who I'd take right now, so don't even try. But it would not be easy."
