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Former Bangor High School baseball coach Bob Kelley said Matt Kinney has wanted to be a major league pitcher since ninth grade.
“He had considered playing football but he didn’t want to take a chance,” said Kelley.
Bangor’s Kinney, 23, will realize his dream on Friday night at SkyDome in Toronto when he takes the mound for the Minnesota Twins against the Blue Jays. It will be his first major league appearance and he is believed to be the first Bangor native to play in the majors.
Winterport’s Mike Bordick is the starting shortstop for the New York Mets.
Kinney was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the sixth round in 1995 before being traded to the Twins a few years later in a deal that brought Greg Swindell and Orlando Merced to the Red Sox.
“When we acquired him from Boston, it was important that we obtain somebody with a high upside like Matt,” said Twins general manager and vice president Terry Ryan. “We knew it would take him a while.
“He had a very good year in AA and responded well in AAA,” added Ryan. “Now there’s a chance for him to get some meaningful [major league] innings in August and September.”
Kinney was 6-1 with a 2.71 earned run average for New Britain of the Eastern League before going 5-2 with a 4.25 ERA for Salt Lake City in the International League (AAA). He was 1-2 with a 7.56 ERA through his first five starts for Salt Lake City.
“When he first got here, he was timid,” said Salt Lake City pitching coach Rick Anderson. “He was walking guys and pitching behind [in the count]. But we told him he had to trust his stuff and be aggressive and come after the hitters.”
That’s exactly what Kinney did and Anderson pointed out that Kinney went at least seven innings in his last four starts “and didn’t walk anybody in two of them.”
According to Anderson, Kinney’s fastball is “anywhere from 89 to 95 miles an hour and it settles in at 91.
“His out pitch is his slider. He throws it 82-84 miles an hour and has good command of it. He also throws a curve here and there. Sometimes it’s a good pitch for him. His changeup is still coming. We made him throw it here. He’s getting confidence in it.
“Before, he’d throw his changeup 84-85 miles an hour. He was throwing it too hard. But we’ve worked with him and now he throws it 76 to 77,” said Anderson.
Anderson also said Kinney has two fastballs, a four-seamer along with a two-seamer he can run away from lefthanded hitters.
Ryan said Kinney has enough velocity on his fastball to strike people out and his sharp slider is complemented by his changeup, “which should give him the ability to negate lefthanded hitters. He has a pretty good assortment of pitches. He has four good pitches. He has a good arm. Now it’s just a matter of command and control.”
Steve Vanidestine, who coached Kinney when he played for Bangor’s American Legion team, said he isn’t surprised by Kinney’s ascent.
“All of us at the high school and those of us who coached him thought he had a real good shot at being there. He had size (6-foot-4, 220 pounds), a good motion and the raw materials to work with. And he was a very good athlete,” said Vanidestine.
Former Old Town-Orono American Legion coach and Old Town High School baseball skipper Dave Paul said it is impossible to predict the odds of somebody making the majors but Kinney “was a tremendous athlete with a strong arm.
“This is certainly a big thing for those people who coached or played with or against him. It’s very exciting for eastern Maine in particular,” added Paul.
Kelley said, “If any kid had a chance to make it to the majors, it was Matt.”
In addition to his talent, Kelley said Kinney had a “mental toughness and a belief in his own ability.”
Paul said the example set by Kinney, Bordick and former major league pitcher Billy Swift of South Portland “shows kids here that making it to the majors isn’t an impossible goal to obtain with the proper coaching and motivation.”
Anderson said Kinney is extremely coachable and he will take Kinney with him to fall baseball in Arizona. Kinney pitched in Arizona last fall after recovering from June surgery to remove elbow chips.
“If he wasn’t real coachable, I wouldn’t have insisted that he come,” said Anderson. “I really enjoy the heck out of working with him. He wants to learn, he’s always asking questions and he retains things. He still has things to work on.
“He is one of the bright spots in the organization. He’s going to be a good one,” said Anderson.
Anderson and Ryan both pointed out that the light air and hitters winds make Salt Lake City a difficult place to pitch.
Ryan said Kinney’s call-up is designed “as much for 2001 as it is for the present. We want to give him an individual barometer so he can see where he stands and how far along he is in the development stage.”
Kinney’s debut, according to former teammate Tommy Waterman, is “a great thing for the whole state of Maine.”
He said Kinney “works hard and deserves everything he has. He’s a competitor. He has never quit.”
The Kinney family was expected to be on hand to watch him pitch and the Ground Round in Bangor will show the game live thanks to a Canadian satellite channel.
Tom Workman, the general manager of The Ground Round, said “we always like to feature sporting events (on our televisions). This is a great thing for Bangor. I just wish he was still with the Red Sox.”
Workman said they will try to show more games involving Kinney for the rest of the season.
Kinney once led Bangor West to the State Little League championship and a berth in the Northeast Regional.
The highlight of his high school career, which included two state Class A championships in baseball and two more in basketball, was his one-hit, 1-0 eight-inning triumph over Portland High in the 1995 state game. He was named the recipient of the Dr. John Winkin Award given to the state’s best high school baseball player.
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