LOWELL – It seems Durbin Feltman is settling into his professional career.
The Red Sox’ third-round draft pick, taken 100th overall, has started his professional journey with the Single-A, Short-Season Lowell Spinners. Lowell’s pitching coach, Nick Green, said it’s all about getting Feltman comfortable.
“He’s a great, great kid first and foremost,” Green said about Feltman after their game Monday. “And he has ‘it’, he has the stuff. Right now it’s all about getting him acclimated. We need to make sure he’s comfortable.”
Feltman’s pitched in two games for the Spinners so far. He’s thrown a combined two perfect innings while striking out four in his two appearances.
“Right now we just want to make sure [Feltman] is comfortable pitching at this next level,” Green said. “We’ve worked on his secondary pitches, everything is coming along nicely. I can’t say there’s anything we’re specifically focusing on with Durbin, we just want to make sure he can go out there and perform.”
The relief pitcher out of TCU explained that he’s now playing around with a curveball in addition to his slider.
"Tonight I felt like my slider command was a little off. The overall command,” Feltman said. “Just trying to spot up everything whether it be fastball or slider. So always working on having that slider, just being able to drop that in for a first-pitch strike or whatever count it is and then toying with the curveball that I have. Just trying to get comfortable with that to be able to throw that in a game. So that's the couple things I'm working on and just getting used to pro ball."
There have been reports circulating since Feltman’s selection that there’s a chance he would join the Red Sox’ bullpen at some point this season. Neither Feltman nor his pitching coach has given it much thought.
“He has the stuff, he has the potential,” Green said. “The talent is there. But I haven’t been involved in any talks. My job is to get him acclimated to Lowell. As for anything going on behind-the-scenes, that’s not my job.”
"Everybody has different expectations,” Feltman added about the possibility. “But I'm just taking it one outing at a time. I just thought to myself, 'That's pretty cool.' It's always cool to read that stuff. But I got placed in Lowell. So I was like, 'Alright. First outing in Lowell, that's what I'm concentrating on, building up for that. And then threw that and now there's this one, and after this one, it's on to the next one wherever it is.'"