September 23, 2011
Furbush maintains laser focus
Maine native keeps sights set on next pitch
by Kevin Henkin/
Charlie Furbush is making the most of his chance to start after being traded from the Tigers to the Mariners before the July trade deadline. (photo: Getty Images)
Charlie Furbush isn’t one to get rattled on the mound. He knows that bad things sometimes happen to baseballs, even when thrown by the best of pitchers.
Furbush — the rookie lefty now pitching for the Seattle Mariners after a midseason trade from the Detroit Tigers — always has possessed an ability to channel his focus on the next pitch, the next batter, the next inning or even the next outing. As far back as his freshman year in high school, Furbush seemed to have the mental makeup of a major-league pitcher far before he possessed the accompanying skills.
Tony DiBiase, who coached Furbush at South Portland High School in Maine from 2001 to 2004, recognized this quality in his star pitcher right away.
“Charlie has a tremendous ability to move on,” DiBiase said. “Whatever happens with the previous batter, he can shrug it off and tell himself, ‘OK, I’ll just get the next guy out.’ That’s the way he’s always been, even back at 14 years old.”
Regarding his mental approach, Furbush said, “In baseball, there’s just so many things that happen that are out of your control. There’s no sense in trying to let them affect you at all.”
Furbush’s brother Jon, the head basketball coach at Bates College, notes that Charlie’s composure may be derived from the family’s proud athletic tradition. Their father was a standout two-sport athlete at Amherst College and their grandfather, Jimmy Fitzpatrick, was a certified local legend who reportedly struck out Babe Ruth twice in an exhibition game and held his own with Jim Thorpe in a football punting contest.
Although Charlie Furbush had the mental aspect of the game squared away at an early age, his talent didn’t truly shine through until his senior year in high school after a growth spurt left him standing at 6-foot-5. By then, he’d committed to play for nearby St. Joseph’s College of Maine, which competed at the Division 3 level.
During a dominant freshman season at St. Joe’s, Furbush caught the eye of Greg King, an opposing coach at Thomas College who at the time also served as the manager of the Hyannis Mets (now the Harbor Hawks) of the Cape Cod Baseball League. King persuaded Furbush to attend the league’s open tryouts in 2005 and after an eye-popping performance, Furbush was offered a full-season contract by Hyannis. It was there that Furbush began his evolution from a hurler to pitcher.
“At the Division 3 level, Charlie could just throw fastball, fastball, fastball, and he would get guys out,” King said. “When he first started pitching in the Cape, he tried to do the exact same thing. Early on, there was certainly a transition period of him facing elite hitters, and that forced him to pitch realizing that the fastball alone just wasn’t going to cut it.”
“The only thing I knew when I first got to the Cape was that I was going to try to throw pretty much exactly how I’d pitched at St. Joe’s,” Furbush said. “I was a fastball guy who wasn’t afraid to consistently throw it, and I ran into some trouble with it. It was definitely a huge learning experience for me.”
After incorporating more breaking balls, Furbush’s fastball became more effective and he soon became one of the top Cape League pitchers. Attracting attention as a Div. 3 player in a league stocked with Div. 1 standouts, Furbush resisted multiple offers to transfer to a Div. 1 program and returned to St. Joe’s for his sophomore year.
But during an even better season in the Cape League in 2006 — which included a no-hitter against the Bourne Braves and a nod to start the Cape League All-Star Game two days later — Furbush made the decision to transfer to LSU. In his first year there, he displayed enough talent to be selected by the Detroit Tigers in the fourth round of the 2007 MLB draft.
Furbush pitched well in his debut season as a pro in 2007, splitting time between the low-A and high-A levels and finishing with a 6-1 record and a 2.34 ERA.
The next spring, he was sidelined by an elbow injury, which required Tommy John surgery to repair and cost him the full 2008 season. In 2009, he returned to pitch and battled through a season of recovery.
“Coming back from that surgery, you have to work really hard to come back from it,” Furbush said. “I’ve seen some guys come back, and they end up throwing harder. I didn’t really gain any velocity, but I’m definitely glad I didn’t lose any either.”
In 2010, Furbush came in healthy and made the leap from Single A to Triple A over the course of the season. Heading into spring training in 2011, there was heavy speculation that Furbush might break camp with the big club in Detroit. Instead, Furbush was sent back to Triple-A Toledo to get some innings as a starter.
In late May, however, the Tigers promoted him to the majors and inserted him into the bullpen, which was new territory for Furbush. Regardless, Furbush responded well to the change and even opened up some eyes with a scoreless five-inning, two-hit, six-strikeout stint in his second major-league appearance, which happened to come at the expense of the Red Sox.
After the 6-3 Boston victory, Red Sox manager Terry Francona said, “That lefty did a good job.”
Looking back on that game, Furbush said, “It was pretty cool being able to pitch against those guys. I grew up watching a lot of them day in and day out, so being able to put myself on the mound against them was kind of a surreal moment for me, but it was something I thoroughly enjoyed.”
After a brief demotion in mid-July, Furbush returned to the Tigers and pitched well in relief until he was traded as part of a package deal to the Seattle Mariners at the non-waiver deadline. In Seattle, he’s been given the opportunity to start again and views the change as a positive.
“It’s not something that I’m mad about or anything,” he said. “I think it’s a good opportunity for me to develop my career with the Seattle Mariners and go from there. I couldn’t say enough good things about both organizations, and it’s all worked out pretty well so far.”
Looking ahead, Furbush hopes to make his home state proud.
“There aren’t a lot of guys that have the opportunity to do what I’ve been doing so it means a lot to me to represent the entire state and the city of South Portland,” Furbush said. “It’s something that I remind myself of, that I am from Maine and I want to represent it well.”
This article originally appeared in the September 2011 issue of New England Baseball Journal.
Kevin Henkin can be reached at feedback@baseballjournal.com
