The biggest shot of Sergio Romo’s career wasn’t his best. At least not from an analytical point of view. It wasn’t his mean either. Far from it. It was an 88mph fastball with very little movement and even less fluff. It captured way too much of the record. It resembled nothing that could come out of a modern major league pitching lab. Its design was elegant only because it was so unexpected.
It was a Trojan horse for a Triple Crown winner. And in the 10th inning of that game in Detroit, with the night air already thickening and an Atlantic Superstorm about to descend, the Giants squeaked in a 2012 World Series that was much closer than it seemed. If Romo’s two-sailor Miguel Cabrera isn’t completely mesmerized, if Buster Posey isn’t looking down his glove and then jumping out of his crouch in jubilation, if the remnants of Superstorm Sandy breach and bring a two-day stalemate to an unresolved World Series, and if the Tigers move on , while Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer wait in the wings to pitch again, who knows what might have happened?
Romo’s crucial fastball could be the most important throw Posey has caught in his career. Posey wished he had a better backstory to tell about it at parties.
“I lowered the slider; he was shaking,” Posey said. “I put the slider back down; he shook. So I did fastball.”
Posey laughed. That’s actually all there is to tell. Beginning, middle and blissful end.
The entire arc of Romo’s 15-year career will come to a blissful conclusion today at the Giants’ Waterfront Stadium and on a hill where he has pitched more times than any other pitcher. He’s slated to emerge from a redesigned bullpen that didn’t exist on his last run as a Giant in 2016, warm up once more to the gleeful impact of “El Mechón,” take on a racquet or three in the Giants’ last game on the show schedule and bring an emotional ending to one of the most successful and amazing careers in franchise history.
Romo was an undersized 28-year-old from a town in the Imperial Valley that grew lettuce, not baseball players. He even beat the odds of setting foot in the big leagues. He got there and stayed there for 15 seasons because he could spin a sweeping slider from his slender hand like no one else could. This slider was his wardrobe. It was also a football, and he made a career out of being Lucy. Time and again he made the best and most demanding racquets in the world look as incompetent as Charlie Brown.
But in his most iconic moment, as the Tigers scored their final goal, Romo triumphed by putting a fastball on a tee.
“We knew each other pretty well at that point,” Posey said. “And I trusted him that when he got a good feeling about something right there, it was, ‘Alright, let’s go.’ That was always my motto. Unless I totally disagreed, I wanted them to throw it when those guys were convicted of throwing it. And he obviously made a wonderful pitch there.
“It took some guts to throw that spot to a Triple Crown winner.”
Hunter Pence was a new addition to this team in 2012 after a July 31 trade from Philadelphia. He was Romo’s locker mate and card playing partner on flights. He loved the way Romo could be so free-spirited off the hill, how he photographed Amy Gutierrez’s reports on camera from the dugout, how he always volunteered to catch the ceremonial first rope pull — a duty that usually imposed on him by rookies and bullpen catchers – because it would give him a chance to meet someone when he’s happiest and maybe brighten his experience a little more. Then Pence would marvel as he saw Romo take the mound and morph into a focused and competitive presence. When asked for a memory of his time with Romo, Pence recalled a conversation they had leading up to the 2012 postseason.
“To complete the World Series, you have to finish a team’s season,” Pence told Romo. “It takes a strong soul and a strong pitcher to say, ‘Your season, all the effort, every energy you put into it, I’m going to finish it.'”
Pence remembered Romo’s reaction. “He just nodded and said, ‘I’m going to end the season for everyone. I’ll be that guy.’ He said it and he did it. And he said it with such conviction that it hit me deep in my soul. He thought of that moment a month before the start of the season.
“And you could feel that. The whole stadium would just snap into place. He ruled the whole stadium and he was fearless. Throwing out there and it was just so much fun to be in that moment when he took the mound. I could feel the confidence he exuded in the outfield. And you could feel that in the stadium. Even his warm-up song was one of my all-time favorites. You hear it and you just feel good.”
Romo took a deep breath, choked with emotion as he was told Pence’s story. Only he knows what was really going through his mind in those moments. He said it often wasn’t what Pence or any of his teammates expected.
“I’m telling you, it wasn’t always in me,” Romo said. “It was teammates like Hunter that allowed me to be that guy. I used to look into the shelter a lot when I was on the hill. At that moment in the grind I looked in there and they were all standing on the top step and cheering me on and you could see on their faces that they felt like it was over. There were times when I really looked into it, questioned myself a bit, questioned the situation, went up against a rival or a top team, maybe in the middle of an assignment. And I went from don’t make a mistake to looking in the dugout and I thought, “There’s no way I’m going to make a mistake at this point.” There was no mistake to make. There was no backing down, no backing down, no holding back. It was a shot of confidence.
“I would look in there and they realized I needed that. And they would give it to me. It was, “We know you can do this. Why not?’ And that’s what I needed at the time. These guys, they just knew how to talk to me. They knew how to reach me. I never wanted to let her down.”
Scanning these dugout faces, Romo often looked for the teammates who most inspired him: Ryan Vogelsong and his tenacity, Matt Cain and his stoicism, Pence and his unrelenting positivity. But more often than not, the first person he made eye contact with was Javier López.
“Javy is like a brother to me,” Romo said.
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No one did more than López to advise Romo during turbulent times, and by his own admission there have been many of them, both personally and professionally. López recalled a turning point in a game at Dodger Stadium in 2011 when Giants manager Bruce Bochy told aides he was hoping to give Brian Wilson a break. Romo took over for López in the ninth and a slugger or two reached base making it a safe situation. Bochy called Wilson over and came out for baseball. Romo grinned as he handed it over. López confronted him in the dugout. Wash off your selfishness and move to the mound for your teammate, López told him.
“He got loud with me, I got loud with him,” Lopez said. “He assaults me meanly and I’m upset about the situation. You know Sergio can get hot. But after that this situation never happened again.”
The other memory that first comes to López’s mind was when Romo took over for him in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2012 NLCS in the middle of a downpour. The game was not competitive at this point. But in a series where the Cardinals had led three games to one, nobody felt like it was over until it was over.
“Then Sergio finishes it for me and everyone loves each other,” López said. “He couldn’t believe it was happening and he was in this place to be that guy. I remember he hugged me tightly. That moment will always pop out. I do not have a brother. I don’t know how this relationship is. But we had already been through so much. That’s how it felt.”
If López was like Romo’s big brother, then there’s no question who the father figure of the right-hander in pro baseball was.
Dave Righetti has been his pitching coach from the moment he first came to big league camp as a cake-eyed pitcher filling out an exhibition list. Righetti had heard all about Romo from his Double-A pitching coach Ross Grimsley and farm director Shane Turner. He knew the Slider was a big league playing field. But he knew nothing about the person. After Romo made his major league debut in Cleveland with a 1-2-3 inning, Righetti was concerned.
“He was in the dugout and hyperventilating,” Righetti said. “He got to a point where I wasn’t sure if he could get out there again when we needed him. And a couple of guys who knew him said, ‘Ah, don’t worry. He’s fine.’
“We later went to the hotel bar and his whole family was there. I mean, he was called in at the last minute en route. I don’t know how they all got there. It was his father, his brother, the whole town of Brawley. It was the beginning of an incredible career.”
Righetti immediately noticed something else about Romo. Really good right-handers couldn’t read his slider.
“You would gauge him – take a pitch that starts at the hip and is over the plate,” Righetti said. “Oh shit, I remember saying. “He has something.” Then he started changing the speed with it. At first he wasn’t happy. We didn’t let him against lefties. We had (left-handed) López and (Jeremy) Affeldt. But I said, ‘You can take care of that when you start making the switch.’ He did and he became closer to us. He had that breaking ball from different angles and he had the guts. To be honest, he was in a class of his own.”
Righetti said he loves coaching helpers who score with personality. Wilson and Romo had two of the largest.
“I enjoyed the job,” Righetti said. “A lot of people didn’t know how to deal with such personalities, but it’s passion. You just loved watching him compete. He kept that chip on his shoulder and challenged people to try and knock it off. Great fielder, great at holding runners. He and Wilson both. Holding runners where no one can steal a run against us? Now you had to hit those two guys? Yes. That was great.”
Wilson said one of his fondest memories of pitching alongside Romo was the time he pulled into the player lot in a Mazda 3 hatchback. Judging by the sound of his bass, the sound system could have been worth more than the car. Wilson chided Romo like one great footballer does to another, telling him that you don’t drive hatchbacks in the big leagues.
“That’s why I love Sergio,” Wilson said. “That night he bought an M6 BMW. He flew to Vegas to pick it up and drove back in the middle of the night. He just needed that little reminder like, “Hey, you belong here. You can treat yourself.’”
The Giants’ player development system had designed and developed pitchers as diverse as Romo, Tim Lincecum and Madison Bumgarner. The only thing they had in common was that they could take a baseball from the hill to the plate. There’s never one person credited for developing a pitcher, let alone three, but it probably starts with the late Dick Tidrow and his open-mindedness to give guys with bodies that didn’t fit the prototype a chance.
Righetti appreciates it more than most: Some skills that are most valuable to a pitcher are also the most difficult to measure.
“Sergio, he certainly had his moments,” Righetti said. “But here’s the thing: He would come to you. You didn’t have to go to him. Some guys get mad and embarrassed when they get caught bragging about out there. You walk backwards. you lose her He wasn’t. I never had to yell at him. It’s just, ‘Come on, let’s go talk somewhere.'”
They had one of those talks on the hill in Game 3 of the 2010 NLDS in Atlanta. Romo replaced Jonathan Sánchez with a runner on base in the eighth inning and the Giants led 1-0. The two teams had split the first two games of the series. It was a pivotal moment and the most important performance in Romo’s career. Troy Glaus had been announced as a pinch racket against Sánchez. After Bochy left for Romo, Braves manager Bobby Cox burned Glaus to reach the left-handed matchup with Eric Hinske.
Hinske hit a stunning two-run home run.
“I went out there. I had to,” Righetti said. “He was devastated. You could see it all over his face. He thought he had failed. I told him, ‘Hey, you’re going to win. You won’t want the win, but you’ll get it.’ From then on he never did it again.”
Even in 2012, when Romo gave up a walk-off home run in St. Louis against Kolten Wong as the Cardinals won Game 2 to tie the NLCS. The Giants won the next three games. Romo did not allow another run for the remainder of the postseason.
“It didn’t affect him,” Righetti said. “He handled that well. And he had his signature moment (2012). But there were so many more moments. During our run we were in a race every year. We had no margin for error. He was as reliable as it gets.
“Shoot, you look at his career and he’s the best helper I’ve ever had.”
Righetti’s comment was also forwarded to Romo. This time the phone went silent for a full, halting minute.
“This hits me…right in the heart,” Romo said. “There are mutliple reasons for this. One is because this guy has been around forever and has influenced many careers. Not just mine. But on a personal level, this guy is… wow. This guy picked me up a couple of times when I was… damn I can’t even speak. ….
“There were times when I felt like I couldn’t stand alone. And he helped me. It was, ‘Hey Rags, I’m fighting to sleep, I can’t get over this, I can’t get over this.’ Could be things on the field or off the field. I’m talking like 4am he would show up in my room on the street. He showed up to my wedding. He invited me to his house. He was there when my grandpa died, which hurt a lot.
“In 2014 I was two weeks away from the All-Star break with Sub-2 ERA and Bochy told me all I had to do was stay healthy and I would be an All-Star again. Then off the field some really hard hitting things happened that really hit me in the last two weeks. During this stretch I lost my senior job. I wasn’t an all star. You’re talking about a career that could go down the drain very, very quickly… and Rags, Javy, Affeldt, even (Santiago) Casilla.
“I was just about to go home. I was about to stop. Those guys, man…especially Rags. So it really hits me that he said that about me.”
In baseball, there is nothing more valuable than consistency, which is not limited to performance on the field. In the everyday life of a 162-game season, there’s value in being the same person, the same teammate, with the same temperament every day. Romo admits he wasn’t always the best at it. But for so many of his teammates, there wasn’t anyone better between the lines.
“One of my favorite teammates and favorite guys to catch,” Posey said. “He could frustrate you to death at times. But you knew his heart was ultimately with the boys on the field. Man, it’s really unbelievable how long he had to twist his arm for as many sliders as he’s thrown in his career. I bet you could argue that Sergio was ahead of the curve in that regard. Today there are employees who say, “We want you to lose 60 to 70 percent of the speed,” and Romo did so at a time when everyone was saying, “You can’t get away with this.”
“And he kept going, kept going. It’s not fair for me to say he made a career out of one pitch because he was too smart to know it wasn’t the only pitch he could have. He would sneak into a fastball, he later developed an alteration. But he was also smart enough to know that this was his bread-and-butter pitch and how he was going to stay in the big leagues. He could shape that pitch in so many different ways.
“Man, that made my job so easy. It was, ‘Okay Romo coming in, I know what I’m going to get, I know he can control that slider either side of the plate, I also know he’s not afraid to meddle the fastball if we think ‘That’s right.’ I obviously have a pitch in mind.”
López also wonders about Romo’s longevity.
“Especially for a guy who’s always complained about elbow pain,” Lopez said, laughing. “That he’s put together 15 years and 800 performances is a testament to his ability to answer the bell. Someone risked it because they believed in what they could do. He’s thrown strikes, he’s lived or died with that slider, and sometimes that’s all it takes. The game will miss his personality. Pitching at the highest level in this industry for 15 years is something to be proud of. He’s shown all five of his boys that they can achieve anything they dream of.”
For a while Romo wasn’t sure if he would dare to dream of becoming a goal in the premier league. So Wilson, his predecessor, said he was particularly proud of what Romo was able to achieve.
“He never allowed the critics to define who he is,” Wilson said. “He never allowed the naysayers to get in the way of his faith and his path. He won his place. He always found a way. It is good testimony for anyone else who believes they must be born a certain way in order to be successful. He used every bit of his faith to overcome whatever shortcomings he thought he had. He wasn’t 6-foot-4 with a long stride. It shows that if you believe in yourself and focus on what you have, not what you don’t have, you can achieve a lot.”
Romo may be saying goodbye to his career on the hill, but the Giants are interested in keeping him in the organization in one role or another. They would love it if he shot into minor league camp and played Johnny Appleseed with his slider. He may live in San Francisco, but the Giants would like to keep him a little closer. They see him as a great tutor for their pitchers when it comes to resilience and competitiveness. That’s quite a transformation for a once-young helper that some coaches might have seen as high-maintenance.
From Romo’s point of view, he was fortunate to be surrounded by coaches and teammates who didn’t see him as someone to care for. They saw him as someone to love.
“Not only have they allowed me to exceed my own expectations and overcome all odds, but they have given me the opportunity to be someone and to make something of my life,” Romo said. “It’s been 12 years of my life and they’ve supported me from start to finish. They never wavered even when I was struggling, even when I had some personal things like everyone does. You never left me alone. In this world, not too many people like to be alone during difficult times. And I never was.”
(Top photo of Romo after completing a win over the Dodgers: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press)