Daniel Bard Plenty Capable of Improving Upon Impressive Rookie Campaign

Even for those who watched all 162 Red Sox games last season, one night in Anaheim stands out among the rest.

No, not the two October nights in which the Red Sox were pushed to the brink of elimination. There was much less at stake on this night. In fact, with the Angels up 7-4 in the sixth inning on May 13, Boston was almost guaranteed to lose.

Yet as rookie reliever Daniel Bard took the hill to start the seventh, every player and coach on the bench climbed to the top step of the dugout, eager to catch a glance at the kid who could throw 100 mph.

And he nearly did.

Bard took the hill and threw three fastballs — two at 96 mph, the third at 98 — to Mike Napoli. All three were swung on, and all three were missed.

From there, Bard's rookie season took off, as the Houston native used his Texas fireball to become one of the most reliable arms out of the Boston bullpen by season's end. While Bard, 24, is happy with that fact, he readily admits that he was learning on the job.

"There's always an adjustment period when you get called up to a new level," Bard told the New Hampshire Union Leader this week. "Getting called up to the big leagues, you know your stuff plays at the level below, but you wonder how it's going to play against better hitters. When I first got up there, I was doing the best I could to trust my stuff, to throw it in the zone, to pitch to contact, to not be afraid to give up a hit or hit a guy and to just pitch in the zone and pitch inside and stick with what got me there from the get-go.

"When I started to get some bad swings and break a couple of bats, I started to realize, 'Yeah, I belong here.'"

So did opposing hitters. Bard gave up just one run in his 8 1/3 innings pitched in May, striking out seven while walking three. Though he struggled in June (5.40 ERA), he bounced back in a big way in July, posting a miniscule 0.333 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) and perfect 0.00 ERA in 12 innings. He struck out 20 batters that month while walking zero.

By the end of the season, his numbers were good but not great. He was 2-2 with a 3.65 ERA, 1.277 WHIP, 63 strikeouts, 22 walks and one save in 49 appearances. In the postseason, he regained his July form, tossing three scoreless innings with four strikeouts and no walks. He even stood to be the hero in Game 3 of the ALDS, entering a bases-loaded, nobody-out situation at Fenway and escaping with just one run scored on a double-play ball. He then struck out two of three batters in the next inning, handing a three-run lead over to the back end of the bullpen. With Takashi Saito and Billy Wagner gone, Bard now figures to be a key member of the late-inning crew.

Bard clearly had major league aspirations from very early in his baseball life, as he refused to sign with the New York Yankees in 2003, when they drafted him in the 20th round of the draft. Always a risky decision, it paid off for Bard, who was taken 28th overall by the Red Sox in 2006. He went on to be named the Minor League Pitcher of the Year for the Red Sox in 2008, and was named the team's Rookie of the Year in 2009.

Bard told the Union Leader that part of the late-season improvement last season had to do with the development of an effective slider.

"I threw some really good ones toward the end of the year to get some strikeouts on it and some ground balls," he told the newspaper. "That gave me some confidence in the pitch right now, and it can be a good weapon against lefties in the future."

Bard also informed the paper that he's getting married this weekend in Georgia and honeymooning the following week in Mexico. Those events will set back his training for 2010 a bit, but given how quickly he learned to adjust last year, there's no doubt that a full spring training with the big club will go a long way in Bard's success this season.