TEMPE, Ariz. — Chase Silseth’s confidence was soaring last summer, after encouraging performances against some of the best teams in baseball.
The Angels right-hander was learning how to pitch, not just throw, and then it all came to a quick, frightening stop.
Silseth was hit in the head by a throw during a rundown, suffering a concussion that cost him most of the season’s final month.
“It sucked to get hit in the head,” Silseth said. “That whole September could have been a learning experience for me.”
Silseth came back to pitch one last game, allowing one run in four innings in the final weekend, but it wasn’t the same as the groove he had found before the head injury.
“That was a big, big, big, big confidence for me,” Silseth said. “When you pitch against one good team, you build confidence for the next good team. And I showed I could do it when I just stayed within myself, not to trying to blow it out. My stuff is good enough to get people out in the zone. Just have to get ahead in the count to get to all my nasty stuff.”
Before Silseth took the mound against the New York Yankees on July 19, his season had been a series of changes, from Triple-A to the majors and from starting to relieving.
The Angels had always believed in Silseth’s potential, but he had not shown that he could maintain his stuff beyond about 60 pitches. At times, there was an internal struggle within the organization over whether they should keep pushing him to get him to pitch deeper in games, or just settle with what he was and use him as a reliever.
Just after the All-Star break, though, Silseth returned from a trip to the minors for a start against the Yankees, and he struck out 10 in 5 2/3 innings, allowing one run.
He then gave up one run in five innings of a victory over the Atlanta Braves, and then he gave up two runs in seven innings, with 12 strikeouts, against the Seattle Mariners. Silseth followed that by pitching five scoreless innings against…
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