ESPN Buster Olney Blog

Nobody had to tell Mark Buehrle to work so fast or to pitch his innings with the frantic pace of someone running to the bathroom during a commercial break. He has done it this way since he first started pitching, his father said on Thursday night.

"I think he started doing it because he loves baseball so much," John Buehrle said a few hours after Buehrle planted his hands on his head in disbelief. "He would play in tournaments as a kid, and sometimes there would be three or four or five games in a day, depending on how quickly they would play. And if a game dragged on, then that meant he couldn't get on to the next game. He picked up that habit out of pure enthusiasm and love for baseball."

The boy would get the throw from the catcher, and almost without pause, he would be firing it back toward home plate. There was one time, when he was still a little leaguer, that the home plate umpire lifted his arms, called time and yelled out to the mound, "Hey, slow down."

"Why? He's in the batters' box," Buehrle responded.

He kept going like that, right into the major leagues, not pausing to walk around the mound, check out the cloud formations, deliberate over his pitch selection or consider whether candles make a fine wedding gift. He stays close to the rubber, looks in for the sign and almost never shakes it off, even when he works with a catcher for the first time, as he did with Ramon Castro on Thursday. "You put down the sign and I'll throw it," Buehrle had told Castro before the game.

For the White Sox, he is the best possible guy to throw in the last game of a series, particularly in a day game, because he works fast, he throws strikes and he keeps the fielders in the game mentally. His effect on the players around him is like a third cup of coffee. And for opposing teams, he is the worst possible guy to face on a getaway day. Players sometimes feel sluggish for day games, and it might take them an inning or two to get up to speed at a time when the use of amphetamines is no longer allowed.

Buehrle keeps on attacking, not giving the hitter a chance to settle in, not giving the hitter a chance to shake the cobwebs or think through an approach. When Evan Longoria stepped into the batter's box with two outs in the top of the first inning, Buehrle was ready to go and started into his windup. It took just 33.75 seconds for Buehrle to throw that pitch and four others to close out the Longoria at-bat.

The average Tampa Bay at-bat against Buehrle on Thursday, in fact, lasted just 54.6 seconds. Eight at-bats were completed within 30 seconds, 10 others were completed between 31 seconds and 60 seconds, and no at-bat lasted longer than 2 minutes, 25 seconds.

Longoria tried to step out after the second pitch of his at-bat against Buehrle, asking for time, then shifting his front foot away from home plate. But he quickly moved back into the box. Slowing down someone like Buehrle is not easy because he remains poised on the mound waiting for you, staring in, ever ready. The catcher is waiting for you, the umpire is waiting for you and the fans are waiting for you. Buehrle once told Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune that it's important for him to control the pace of the game no matter what the hitter does to slow him down. Even if the batter steps out, Buehrle will step off and wait, and at the instant the hitter is back in the box, Buehrle will be attacking, again.

He kept on like that on Thursday, inning after inning, never shaking off a sign, just rocking and firing until the the final ground ball. Then, John Buehrle picked up his phone and called his son to leave him a message, the way he has after every start in his child's big league career, that Mark listens to when he gets back to his locker. Sometimes he'll leave a message of congratulations: Hey, nice job, Bunky -- a leftover nickname from Mark Buehrle's time in the Boy Scouts in which he and his father would share a tent on troop trips. Sometimes, after a tough game, the message will be words of encouragement.

On Thursday afternoon, when it came time for John Buehrle to leave a message, he struggled for words through his emotions. And after Mark Buehrle came off the field and listened to his father's message, he called home, and father and son shared more emotion.

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