GRAND CHUTE, Wis. – There have been many firsts in the professional baseball career of Quintin Torres-Costa.
GRAND CHUTE, Wis. – There have been many firsts in the professional baseball career of Quintin Torres-Costa.
His first strikeout. His first minor league victory. His first time getting promoted. And don’t forget, his first time having to play in the snow.
The Hilo native experienced snowfall for the very first time in his life, actually, when he was assigned to Single-A ball in Grand Chute, Wis., home of the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, an affiliate for the Milwaukee Brewers. It was a culture shock for the 21-year-old.
“Thirty degrees up here and it’s snowing,” Torres-Costa said. “I didn’t even know we could get snow.”
A little white, fluffy stuff in early April? Welcome to northeastern Wisconsin, kid.
“That was a cool experience learning how to play in snow and just experience the cold weather,” Torres-Costa said. “It was nice.”
Torres-Costa, a 2012 graduate of Waiakea High School, was sent to Wisconsin after competing in spring training in sunny Maryvale, Ariz. Before that, Torres-Costa was in Hilo during the offseason training for his first full professional season.
Torres-Costa was prepared to play baseball, but wasn’t prepared at all for cold Wisconsin climate, so he put some of his money from pro contract to good use.
“I did not have any warm clothes at all, so coming in here, I was at Scheels buying everything,” Torres-Costa said.
The weather might have been cold early in the season, but the left-handed pitcher has started to heating up on the diamond. The 35th-round pick of the Brewers in 2015 has been lights out as the regular season winds down, sporting a 6-2 record with an ERA of 4.31 in 39 appearances out of the bullpen, striking out 77 batters in 61 2/3 innings – four came with Helena – with 29 walks.
Lefty specialist
The Timber Rattlers use a tandem pitching system where they generally have a starter throw a certain number of innings, followed by a bridge reliever and then use another starter-type pitcher to complete the tandem. Torres-Costa has been an effective bridge reliever, along with duties as a setup guy and closer, and hee’s been inserted into tight games and on mop-up duty.
“He’s what we call the lefty specialist,” said Timber Rattlers pitcher Jordan Yamamoto, who grew up in Honolulu. “He just comes into the game and gets his stuff done and he’s out of there.”
Timber Rattlers pitching coach Gary Lucas likes using Torres-Costa in the setup role in the later innings.
“I think he’d be good with a couple guys behind him, a couple right-handers,” Lucas said. “But when he’s got a mix of lefties and switch hitters that the manager can turn around and he pitches the sixth and seventh innings, I think he’s at his best.”
Torres-Costa has embraced his role, whether he faces one hitter an outing or going two full innings. On Thursday night, he came in, allowed a hit with two strikeouts, and came out.
“That’s not for everyone, but I’ll do anything to get that ‘W,”’ Torres-Costa said. “It’s a team sport, so all in all at the end of the day, if we get that ‘W’, it doesn’t really matter. I do whatever to support the team.”
He’s been tremendous in that aspect lately. In his last 10 appearances for the Timber Rattlers, he’s allowed just three earned runs in 16 1/3 innings and struck out 18. He dropped his ERA from 5.49 at the end of July to 4.37 at the end of August.
“I use the word efficient, and he has been,” Lucas said. “He’s been around the zone, made the opposition beat him — he hasn’t beat himself. He’s improved on holding runners, fielding his position. He’s become more of a complete pitcher and he has every reason to have his confidence real high.”
Getting a grip
After pitching in rookie ball last year, Torres-Costa started this season by approaching Lucas for help with his slider. It’s always been a pitch that Torres-Costa has mixed well with his fastball, but he wanted different results.
“I said, ‘It looks fine. You just might want to make sure you tighten it up a little bit’ — and it had a big break,” Lucas said. “I just suggested, ‘You maybe use a faster hand to tighten it up a little bit and maybe you could throw more strikes with it.’ He told me he made a couple grip adjustments with it and so forth, and it’s been a real good pitch for him this year.”
Torres-Costa, who is 5-foot-11, throws a four-seam fastball that ranges from 89-92 mph – but he has hit 95 on the radar gun this season. That pitch goes along with his slider, which is a 10 mph drop from his fastball. He’s also worked on lengthening his stride and throwing harder this season.
“When I saw him last year, his slider is a lot better, his fastball command is a lot better,” Yamamoto said. “Overall, he’s just an unbelievable pitcher.”
Left-handed hitters are batting just .232 against him this season.
“They’ve been saying my fastball has been running and has been tailing,” Torres-Costa said. “So, we just use a combination of hitting them inside and pushing them away and then hitting the outside corner.
“What’s been helping me is Lucas is telling me to get more aggressive with every pitch, and slowly it started to come along.”
Offseason goal
Torres-Costa played two seasons at the University of Hawaii before being drafted, and when he left school early he had some unfinished business: a degree.
Torres-Costa has just one semester remaining to graduates with a degree in communicology. Once the season wraps up Monday, he’ll head to Manoa to take classes, which started Aug. 22. In the meantime, he’s been emailing his professors and getting work done online to keep up.
“It’s great to have a degree just to have something to fall back on, but this is my first priority and I want to play baseball for a living,” Torres-Costa said. “The degree is just for my family, because I’m the first person to go to college and I wanted to just represent them. This is a way I can give back to them is getting a degree.”
Even while he’s busy during the season, Torres-Costa makes sure he connects with his family back in Hilo.
“Every outing I throw, I call them,” Torres-Costa said. “The time difference is five hours, so as soon as the game’s done, it’s like 6 o’clock (in Hilo). It’s the perfect time to call back home and see how everybody’s doing.”
The plan is to graduate in December and head back to Hilo and work out with Kodi Medeiros, a fellow Waiakea graduate and Brewers farmhand. The two exchange texts and phone calls on a regular basis.
“We kind of throw the same, so we were just giving feedback back and forth,” Torres-Costa said.
Torres-Costa likes to get together with his fellow professional ballplayers from Hilo. He is also close with Kean Wong, who is in the Tampa Bay Rays’ organization, and Wong’s older brother, Kolten Wong of the St. Louis Cardinals.
“Just because from a hitting standpoint, I can talk to Kolten or Kean about it and say that if they’re facing a lefty what do they normally throw them and how they approach what they see from lefties,” Torres-Costa said.
Moving up?
It’s Torres-Costa’s approach to hitters, especially lefties, that makes Lucas believe his young pitcher will work his way up the Brewers’ farm system.
“He’s got enough control, but command for me is when he’s got three or four lefties lined up and all of them need to be pitched away — he knows how to get that ball on the outside corner,” Lucas said. “I think he’ll have command when he goes through innings and some of our levels of development. And then hopefully at the higher level he’ll be a guy that they can count on and trust to throw it over to lefties and all hitters.”
The Timber Rattlers are in the wild-card playoff hunt in the Midwest League, and as the year winds down Torres-Costa is hoping he’s showed enough this season for the Brewers’ brass to move him up to Double-A to start of next season.
“Anyway possible to show the organization what I can do and hopefully improve myself and make a career out of baseball,” Torres-Costa said.
Quintin Torres-Costa/numbers to know
77 strikeouts for Quintin Torres-Costa in 61 2/3 innings in the minors this season
.232 batting average for left-handed hitters against Torres-Costa
3 earned runs allowed for Torres-Costa in his last 16 1/3 innings
1 Semesters left that Torres-Costa needs to complete to get his degree at UH