Jordan Zimmermann rarely shows emotions, which doesn’t mean he rarely feels them. The frustration he's harbored for much of this year, and for most of his four seasons in Detroit, peaked through the surface after a loss to the Phillies in late July that dropped his record to 0-8 and raised his ERA above 7.50.
“I basically hit rock bottom,” Zimmermann said. “What did I have, 12, 13 starts and an 8.00 ERA? I mean, it can’t get any worse than that, really.”
In his post-game interview that day, Zimmermann was asked what it’s like to be so bereft of answers, to go start after start without any results. The question seemed to stagger him for a moment, in the way it cut to the core of his new reality. He swallowed hard a couple times, then steadied a slightly trembling voice. He said he wasn’t going to quit.
Had he been pressed any further, his façade may have cracked completely.
After the scrum in front of Zimmermann’s locker was over, Matthew Boyd, watching from a few stalls down, stopped by for a minute or two. He spoke quietly with Zimmermann, looking him in the eye like the good teammate he is. If there was ever an image that captured Zimmermann’s spiral, here it was, the younger Boyd offering words of encouragement and a pat on the back to the 11-year vet.
This seems like a long time ago, much longer than a handful of weeks. Since returning Aug. 17 from a neck injury, the latest setback in a long line of them the past few years, it’s been nothing but fist bumps for Zimmermann. He owns a 2.45 ERA and a 0.86 WHIP over his last four starts, at once stopping the bleeding and perhaps stitching together a new future.
To explain how, Zimmermann holds an imaginary baseball in his hand and splits his middle finger and forefinger over the seams. This is the grip that pitching coach Rick Anderson showed him at the nadir of his struggles. It’s a sinker, not dissimilar to others Zimmermann has tried over the course of his career, only this one doesn’t put strain on his elbow.
“Talking with Rick, he said, ‘The good ones, you can’t see when you throw them, you can’t tell that they’re moving.’ The first couple times I threw it, I’m like, ‘That’s not doing anything,’” Zimmermann said. “But the catcher’s like, ‘It’s got good sink, and when you throw it up (in the zone) it’s got more run than sink.’”
“I figured I had nothing to lose, since every time I went out there I got my ass handed to me anyway,” he said.
As Zimmermann recalls, he only threw it three or four times the first game. He yanked the first one into the dirt. He cut the next one off early and missed his spot again. He threw the third one the same way he’d throw a fastball, letting the natural rotation of his arm take over, and there it was. He fired the sinker again and again his next time out. That triggered this stretch of starts in which the 33-year-old has turned back the clock.
“I would say, just this year, ever since he added that pitch, it’s definitely the best I’ve seen him,” said catcher John Hicks.
With the sinker, Zimmermann is better equipped to go in on righties and away to lefties. In turn, his breaking pitches are more effective. Since making it a primary part of his arsenal – starting Aug. 4 versus Texas – he’s inducing ground balls at the rate he used to as a two-time All-Star with the Nationals. He won’t ever throw like that pitcher again, not with the mid-90’s velocity, but maybe he can produce similar results.
It would be a welcome surprise for the Tigers, who just a few months ago feared their five-year, $110 million investment was sunk for good. When Zimmermann felt a zap in his elbow during a start against the Red Sox in late April, the kind of zap that led to Tommy John surgery in 2009, he feared the same thing.
“That was the one time I really thought my arm was shot,” he said.
“We had an MRI the next day, and the whole night I talked to my wife and some buddies and basically said, ‘This is probably going to be it. Probably going to have to have another Tommy John,’” Zimmermann said. “You always think the worst right away, and those were obviously the thoughts going through my head.”
In some ways, it felt like a fitting end. Zimmermann, a workhorse in Washington, has been battered by injuries in Detroit. It began with a neck issue in 2016. Shoulder and core problems followed. The elbow would be the final blow.
“We thought that he basically finished his arm off,” said Ron Gardenhire.
The results on Zimmermann’s MRI came back the next day. Prepared for the worst – a torn UCL -- he was relieved to find out it was just a sprain. No surgery. Several weeks of rehab and then he could get back on the mound.
“When I got that news, I was ready to keep pushing and moving on," he said.
While Zimmermann’s elbow recovered, his numbers worsened when he returned in June. He surrendered 28 hits and 20 runs over a three-start nosedive in July -- but he never surrendered to frustration. No emotional outburst, no lapse in his steady demeanor, even after hitting “rock bottom” in his final start that month. Instead, Zimmermann plugged away in his search for answers, until he found them.
“That’s the way I’ve been my whole career,” he said. “You can’t really show weakness, because other guys in the clubhouse are going to see that and then you bring the clubhouse down.”
On a team full of players trying to find their way in the majors, this professionalism matters.
“He’s going about it the right way,” said Gardenhire. “To see him back out there healthy and doing what he’s doing is pretty cool. I know it’s a big relief for him, because he was pretty upset at the time (of his elbow injury.)
“He can pitch, he really knows how to pitch, and that’s a big deal for us. We got another year with him and he’s an important piece.”
Whether Zimmerman can carry this turnaround into 2020 is another question, arguably the question that matters most. But for now, his resurgence is a source of cheer in a clubhouse that hasn’t had much to smile about in another long season. It’s brought relief to Zimmermann – “It definitely feels good,” he said – and it’s brought some happiness to his teammates, who watched a proud pitcher get pushed to the brink, then stare down the end and find his way back.
“It couldn’t happen to a better person,” said Boyd. “He’s a true professional, a professional and a friend. I learn from him every single day.”
“It’s awesome to watch,” said Hicks, who might have the best view of all from behind home plate. “You hate to see a guy who’s had so much success in his career go through a stretch where he’s not doing what he’s accustomed to doing. I think for me, it speaks volumes of him as a player that he was able to make those adjustments. His whole career he’s been a four-seam, slider guy.
“His openness to add that sinker speaks to how much he wants to succeed and how much he cares about it.”
Nothing about Zimmermann’s time with the Tigers has gone as expected. He’s banked $85 million the past four seasons and logged an ERA of 5.39. He’ll make $25 million in 2020, tied for seventh among big-league pitchers. The Tigers will look forward to an ugly contract coming off the books, a contract that divides a changing organization between what it was and what it hopes to become. No one is more aware of this than Zimmermann himself.
But for as long as he’s here, he intends to help. He intends to shepherd the Tigers’ young arms, the same way he has this season, and he intends to make the most of a pitch he wishes he'd learned much earlier in his career. After quieting the Indians with sinker after sinker last week, Zimmermann said he was chatting with some buddies, the same ones he leaned on in Boston when his baseball future was in doubt.
His sudden revival casts hope into next season. Perhaps Zimmermann has a legitimate comeback in store, health willing. Not that he's thinking that far ahead.
“Honestly, I’ve just been trying to get through this season,” he said. “Let’s see where it goes. Obviously I have another year here, and I’m excited to have a fresh start next year and have this pitch and see what happens.”