At 3 p.m. Wednesday, JC Ramirez pulled on his baseball pants, laced up his cleats, buttoned his uniform, buckled his belt, and headed for the bullpen behind left field at Angel Stadium.
This between-starts bullpen session, 75 hours before Ramirez took the mound Saturday against the Boston Red Sox, was not going to be a normal shorts-and-shirt bullpen session.
“Treat it like a game,” Ramirez said, scrunching his face and pointing two fingers to his eyes. “Stay focused.”
The Nicaraguan right-hander is new to the realm of starting pitching, so he has used this season as his study hall.