Close with the closer

Papelbon’s brother has goals of his own

By Adam Kilgore, Globe Staff  |  July 3, 2009

WOODBRIDGE, Va. - Josh Papelbon’s last name carries a specific connotation in baseball, fastballs and fist pumps and ferocity. People watch him jog toward the mound, they see “Papelbon’’ across the back of his shoulders, and they expect.

And then he takes the mound, his glove and right hand set low, at his belt buckle. Then he starts his windup by - what’s this? - taking his right hand past his backside and leaning forward. Papelbon’s knuckles nearly scrape the ground. The ball darts and dives. Anything above 80 miles per hour on a radar gun is foreign to him.

“They want to see the guy coming out throwing 96,’’ Papelbon said two weeks ago, leaning against a chain link fence outside the visitors’ clubhouse of an empty minor league park. “That’s just not going to be it, you know?’’

Josh is 2 1/2 years younger, 3 inches shorter, and 15 pounds lighter than his brother Jonathan. He is a relief pitcher, but Josh and Jonathan share nothing else on a pitcher’s mound. Jonathan has become perhaps the best reliever in Boston Red Sox history, the closer with more saves than any other, by throwing high-90s fastballs. Josh pitches for the Single A Salem (Va.) Red Sox, a submarine-style middle reliever whose goal is, he said, “I guess immediately, not to get released. Still have a job.’’

Since the Red Sox drafted him in the 48th round in 2006, Papelbon has pitched in the same organization as his older brother, one of the best baseball players on the planet, a three-time All Star and World Series closer.

“It’s a little tougher than normal, because everybody expects him to be like Jonathan,’’ said John Papelbon, the father of Jonathan and Josh. “He’s so different.’’

Josh had a choice. The Red Sox asked both Jeremy Papelbon, Josh’s identical twin who pitches in Double A for the Chicago Cubs, and Josh their feelings about playing in the same organization as Jonathan.

Jeremy actively avoided Jonathan’s shadow. When Mississippi State, Jonathan’s alma mater, recruited Jeremy, he told coaches no thanks, and chose North Florida, where Josh also played. When Red Sox scouts watched him, Jeremy let them know he wanted to play for another team, any but his big brother’s.

Josh was different. Of John Papelbon’s three boys, Josh has always been the most outgoing, the least prone to worry. In high school, he introduced himself to strangers and organized nights out with friends. Jeremy and Jonathan have closely cropped hair. Josh’s once fell below his shoulders, and it still pours out the back of his cap.

Jonathan’s infamous, half-naked dance number on the Fenway Park infield in 2007 spurred reporters to call his mother and ask how wild Sheila Papelbon’s oldest son was growing up. Sheila told them, “You haven’t even met the crazy one. That’s Josh.’’

When Josh reported to Lowell in 2006, he never shied away from the interviews and questions about his brother. He liked them. He didn’t brush off the pressure. For him, it never existed. He views the comparisons not as a burden, but a point of family pride.

“It was a good thing,’’ Josh Papelbon said. “Jonathan kind of made these shoes that were really big for me to fill. Maybe if it wouldn’t have been like that, then me and Jeremy would have been different.

“It didn’t really matter to me. I was always living in my twin brother’s shadow or Jonathan’s shadow. I was constantly being compared back and forth. It didn’t really bother me none. It never has. I kind of enjoy it, you know. That means that they’re doing well.’’

The Papelbon brothers look and, even more so, with thick drawls, sound alike. They differ on a baseball field. Jonathan is a flame-throwing closer, Josh is a righthanded, submarining middle man, and Jeremy, while he has pitched out of the bullpen this season with the Tennessee Smokies, is a lefthanded starter.

“I’m still waiting for the day, maybe one day in the big leagues,’’ Jonathan said, “when Jeremy starts, Josh sets me up, and I close. That’d be cool.’’

Before a game in June at Potomac, Josh Papelbon trudged through the soggy outfield grass and tapped the shoulder of Kyle Fernandes, a sidearming lefty who has become one of his best friends and his road roommate. “Hey, Fern,’’ Papelbon said. “Can you catch me?’’

Fernandes squatted and called pitches for three imaginary lefthanded batters, an exercise that takes 20 pitches. Papelbon and Fernandes perform the drill every day. Afterward, Papelbon put himself through extra conditioning drills.

Papelbon is trying to rise through the Red Sox farm system like any other player. His name brings more recognition - “Girls are like, ‘Oh, Papelbon, Papelbon,’ ’’ Fernandes said. “So I just tag along with him’’ - but not special treatment.

“He would never cheat,’’ Fernandes said. “He’d be out there, same thing as us. Everything that the regular guy did, every day he’d do the same thing. He’s always been the same Josh every single day.’’

Josh played first base and outfield before the summer leading into his senior year of high school, and he felt his interest in baseball waning. A summer league coach tried him as a relief pitcher, and he loved the feeling of parachuting into any situation. Pitching out of the bullpen rekindled his love for baseball.

He could throw in the mid-80s overhand, and he went with Jeremy to North Florida. His coach, Dusty Rhodes, wanted a different look from his bullpen, and he persuaded Papelbon to throw sidearm. He tinkered with his arm slot, dropping it lower and lower. He tried different grips and worked for more movement on his pitches.

During college road games, fans teased him. He heard, “Hey, Jennie Finch, the softball field is over there! Why don’t you throw like a man?’’

“He loved it,’’ Sheila Papelbon said. “It got him pumped up. It’s kind of like Yankee fans and Jonathan. It makes him do better.’’

Josh continued perfecting the motion, and when he could, Jonathan helped. He scrounged for old tapes of Byung-Hyun Kim and arranged a meeting between Josh and then-Red Sox reliever Chad Bradford, the pitcher Josh most resembles.

Papelbon added a slider last year and a changeup this year. The pitches have helped him add deception, especially against lefthanded batters, his most difficult challenge. At his best, Papelbon can be mystifying. His friends on the Myrtle Beach Pelicans told him batters walk around the dugout and ask, to no one in particular, “How did I miss a freaking 75-m.p.h. fastball?’’

Papelbon has recently enjoyed one of the best stretches of his career. In his last 15 1/3 innings, a stretch of 10 games, Papelbon has allowed one earned run while striking out 13 and walking one, which lowered his ERA to 3.38. For Papelbon, 26, to reach the majors, it will take much more of that. Jonathan’s hopes to pitch in the same game as his brother remain years away, but Jonathan can envision his brother’s ascension.

“I think he definitely has the heart and the will,’’ Jonathan said. “You may not look at him and say, ‘He’s got all the talent through the roof.’ Because he doesn’t. But to me, you don’t need that to get to the big leagues to be successful if you have [guts] and heart.

“That’s what he’s always had to do, because he hasn’t had the 95-mile-an-hour fastball. You see so many guys in the game that do have that and still can’t make it in the big leagues.’’

Growing up in Jacksonville, Fla., Jeremy and Josh looked up to Jonathan, all three brothers close and competitive. The twins would gang up and try to beat up Jonathan. One brother would foul another during a driveway basketball game, and all of a sudden the ball would disappear and the game would turn into a fistfight. During a family Christmas not long ago, while Jonathan was in the minors, a game of Yahtzee devolved into heated accusations of cheating.

Jeremy and Josh wanted to be like Jonathan but, “it was kind of a mutual thing,’’ Sheila said. Jonathan admired his brothers’ close relationship. After the family moved to Jacksonville, Jonathan came home from the first day of school and told his mother, “I wish I was a twin, because then I’d have an automatic best friend.’’ When his wife was pregnant last year, Jonathan told his mother, “I hope I have twins.’’

Jonathan still relies on Jeremy and Josh. He talks with each two or three times a week. They talk about their love lives and Jonathan’s baby girl, and the conversation drifts to their work. Jonathan helps Josh, but Josh helps Jonathan, too, more than one might expect.

“A lot more,’’ Jonathan said. “It’s great, because we can sit there, we can talk baseball, we can talk life. We can talk anything. In this game, you need that person to go to. That’s what we have. And not very many people can say they have that.’’

Josh and Jonathan live together in Fort Myers, Fla., during spring training. For the past three years, they have split up every morning, Jonathan heading to the major league field, Josh down the road the other way, toward the minor league complex. They have talked before about the day they can go to work together.

“I want to get to the big leagues, ultimately,’’ Josh said. “I want to see all three of us do well. It’s not like I want to do better than him. I want us all to do good.’’