Crafty

Glavine

throwing

hitters . . .

Tom Glavine, 39 years old, is trying to reinvent himself.

With 268 wins under his belt, the veteran left-hander has always gotten by with the sinker and changeup, nibbling his way around the zone. He has used deception to get hitters out, but in recent years, the book on Glavine has been an easy read for enemy batters.

Friday night, however, in the Mets’ 2-1 loss to the Braves, Glavine went seven strong innings, allowing one run on six hits. He called that outing one of his best this season.

The reason he was able to keep the Atlanta hitters at bay was because they were surprised at what he was throwing at them. Instead of keeping his pitches down and away all night, Glavine (6-7) was coming inside and chucking more curveballs than he had all season.

“I was happy with the way I threw the ball,” Glavine said.

“In terms of going out there and using both sides of the plate and using all my pitches, that’s probably as good a job as I’ve done in that regard all year long,” Glavine said. “It’s just the kind of thing to keep working on stuff, keep trying to get comfortable with it and get some more confidence in doing some things that are a little bit against what I’m used to doing. To do it against a team like that, that’s obviously playing real well and is one of the better teams in our league, is certainly good for my confidence.”

After starting the season 1-4, Glavine is 2-0 in his last four starts. A big part of that stability has been his tinkering, throwing more curves than usual.

“I’ve been trying to pitch [inside] a lot more as a whole,” Glavine said. “I threw the other day in Pittsburgh and I kind of messed around with [the curveball] a little bit and it felt pretty good. So I thought, you know what, let’s throw a few and see if we can get something out of it. At this point in my career, you’re trying to get away form being the Tom Glavine, so to speak, that everybody’s used to; that sinker-changeup guy with everything’s away. You try to change up that pattern a little bit and not only make myself hopefully more successful, but make my job a little bit easier.

“I think the more I’m able to pitch inside successfully,” Glavine added, “the more I’m able to use some of my other pitches, I think the easier it is for me to go back to those two pitches that I’ve counted on for so many years.”