San Diego Padres’ starting pitcher Brian Lawrence hosted a baseball workshop at UCSD for 60 local kids on Oct. 1, three days after his team clinched the National League West Division title.
Follow my lead:
The “Get Schooled by Brian Lawrence Vitamin Water Clinic” brought boys and girls of various ages to Triton Baseball Field, where they participated in hitting, pitching, fielding and baserunning drills, taught by Lawrence and a number of UCSD baseball coaches. Lawrence offered words of encouragement and advice as he showed the kids how to wind up and throw a pitch.
When one child sporting a Padres’ jersey stepped on to the mound to throw to him, Lawrence offered some Padre pride: “You’ve got a Padres’ uniform on, let’s see a strike.”
At the end of the workshop, Lawrence began signing autographs in the stadium’s dugout. Although I failed to get an autograph, I was granted a short interview with the five-year Padre veteran in which I asked about the event and his role with the playoff-bound Padres.
RE: How did you like working on Triton Baseball Field?
BL: It’s nice. Actually, it resembles the college I went to a little bit in the way it’s laid out. I remember just having so much fun there and playing the game strictly for the love of the game and won the job at that point. I haven’t really heard a lot about the UCSD program, but I’m sure it’s doing really well.
RE: Is this your first time working with kids, or do you do other programs like this during your free time?
BL: I’ve worked with one or two kids individually, not as a big group like this, so it was a learning experience. But I had fun with it and hopefully they enjoyed it as well.
RE: What do you think the kids will get out of this program? What is your goal for today in terms of teaching the kids valuable baseball skills and other skills?
BL: I just want them to have fun and to learn and do things right. But the main thing is to have fun, and they’re kids, so they’re playing for the love of the game and it’s fun to watch.
RE: You pitched on Sept. 29, a day after your Padres clinched the NL West. Does your mentality change as you go into a game that you know doesn’t count or do you maintain the same focus to stay prepared for the postseason?
BL: No, you have to stay focused anytime you step on a major-league field. Nobody wants to go out there and get embarrassed, so I wanted to go out there and pitch the best I could and that’s what I tried to do and I had a pretty good game. Like I said, anytime you go out there, you don’t want to be embarrassed, so everybody was trying as hard as they could. Even though it was a relaxed state of mind because we had already clinched, everybody was playing hard and we were trying to win a game.
RE: In the game, you pitched nine scoreless innings, probably the best start of your season. What was going through your head as you were mowing down the San Francisco Giants?
BL: Well I just had everything going that day. When you can use all your pitches and you’re locating down in the zone like I need to, it makes it a lot of fun. You can go out there and go right after some hitters. I threw lots of strikes and I was able to keep my pitch count down, so I was able to go deeper into the game.
RE: The Padres are looking at one of the worst records of a division winner and will likely face the Cardinals in the first round. What do you have to say to your critics who claim that the Padres will get swept in the first round?
BL: I tell them to go back and take a look at how we played them this season. I think we’ve played them seven times and we’re 4-3 against them, so we’re not just an easy team to beat.
