Catching up with Atlanta Braves prospect, pitching savant Mike Soroka

I remember talking with Jim Jones about you this past season. One of the things Jim told me is how you’re such a nice guy to talk to and then when you’re on the mound, you’re a bulldog.

I’ve seen it myself, and I gotta say, as a fan, I love it. You seem totally in the zone. How the heck do you do that? I’d be distracted by the first person who hollered at me… I could never do it.

MS – Most of it is just competitiveness.

It’s not  like a switch I’m trying to turn on. Its not like I’m trying to block people out either. You kind of do it because it doesn’t matter in that moment. The only thing that matters is the pitch you’re about to deliver to home plate. So just simplifying it in that sense makes it easier.

For lack of a better word… I’ve been over-competitive at times. It stemmed from gym class in elementary school. There used to be talks between teachers and parents. They said I basically got after it too hard in gym class. So my dad made sure I never stopped doing that.

Losing is not fun, nor is it acceptable and winning makes everything much more fun. Dennis Lewallyn, our Double A pitching coach asked me a question in Spring Training. He asked me, “Is pitching defense? Or is it offense?” I said “offense” after connecting the dots.

The way he explained it is – you’re always attacking your hitter. You’re the predator. They’re the prey. So it’s about bringing that to every pitch and not losing that stream of edginess. I had sort of a lack-luster July, where I just didn’t seem to have that same intensity and I just went back to going pitch-by-pitch.

Speaking of competitive pitching, a guy I grew up watching, being an Atlanta Braves fan and all, was Greg Maddux. He seemed like he knew that his most important weapon was the six inches between his ears. And it was fun to watch him hate to lose.

MS – I’m fortunate to have Chris Reitsma as my pitching coach at home here. He knew Greg Maddux a little bit when he played with the Braves and he said everyone had this image of Greg as being this super crazy out-of-this-world intellectual, and he’s certainly a super smart guy, but he was also so much simpler than so many other pitchers and that’s how he got guys out.

He simplified things. Any changes he made on the rubber, minor tweaks just to make a better pitch, and how easily he was able to do that, was what made him so good.

When you think of competitiveness, a lot of times you think of that angry guy on the mound, that guy who’s just blowing fastballs past guys, but that’s not true competitiveness sometimes. To compete is to do everything in your ability to get the guy out.

Kolby and Touki made fun of me for this all year, but sometimes I would take a little bit off the fastball because you understand that gassing out for one or two more miles per hour isn’t going to help you. I knew I had to take a little bit off sometimes.

So, to be able to dial it back a little when you need to is really important, instead of going out there and getting mad and trying to throw one a hundred miles per hour… because that isn’t going to happen right now.

When I spoke with you back in June, you told me that one of the things you were working on was your breaking ball. It was kind of a slurve. You said that some days you were having a hard time finding it. Have you improved in this area?

MS – Yes. That ended up being my most consistent pitch this year. Last year it was my change-up and I’ve been working on getting that back more than anything else this year.

My curveball was kind of always there. It started to become more of a true slider towards the end of the season. I don’t know what it was… if I was throwing it differently… but it did kind of pull off from that slurvy pitch. When you think of “slurvy” you just think of just this bad spinner.

What I want is a 2-point break. I don’t want it to be a true horizontal slider because sometimes those can be easy to hit, but I can’t throw a true curveball from my arm slot because it’s going to be loopy. So it’s kind of all about finding my breaking ball.

I mean, it doesn’t have to be called anything, it just has to be a breaking ball and it has to be my best one. So I think for the most part, we kind of solidified the pitch and it got harder as the year went on. So I think my confidence is pretty much at an all time high with the breaking ball.

Who wins in a brawl? Chase Johnson-Mullins or the Augusta Greenjackets?

MS – Depends on who gets there first. Hmmm… I think it’s certainly going to take more than a couple of guys to take Chase down. I’m going to have to say Chase.