BOSTON -- He won't be distracted by any Opening Day festivities tonight at Fenway Park when he makes his Boston Red Sox debut.
But, then, whenever it's Dustin Hermanson's turn to pitch, he's so pumped up, every day is Opening Day, filling him with boundless energy that sometimes overpowers him and leads to his undoing on the mound.
"I'm excited when I'm out there," said Hermanson on Monday. "It's my job to pitch. And I love my job. I have too much of a great attitude sometimes. But I wouldn't change my aggressiveness for the world. I'd rather be that way than be lazy."
There is nothing about Hermanson's body language that suggests he could be lazy if he tried. He is perpetual motion personified, his eyes wide open, sparkling with life, his shock of flowing, curly black hair a blur as he bounds about the clubhouse.
"I bounce off the walls. The guys don't know what to make of me. I'm usually in the clubhouse three hours before a game, slamming a ball into my glove. That's just how I am," said Hermanson.
Hermanson had a cup of hot coffee in his hands as he sat in the Sox' dugout and spoke engagingly with the media. But he says he's not a coffee drinker on days he pitches. Too much caffeine. And if it's something Hermanson doesn't need, it's extra caffeine.
"Two cups of coffee and I'm done," said Hermanson in his rapid-fire, rat-a-tat speech pattern. "I can't drink coffee when I pitch. If I do, I'm too much of an animal. But I wouldn't change. I love my energy."
The trouble for Hermanson in his previous five-plus seasons in the big leagues, however, has been his inability at times to harness his aggressiveness on the mound.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound right-hander, who will start tonight's second game of the season, against the Toronto Blue Jays, is merely a .500 pitcher. Hermanson's career record is 61-61. A reliever for most of his time in the minors, Hermanson has been mainly a starter in the big leagues for San Diego, Montreal and St. Louis.
The Red Sox obtained him during the winter meetings last December, sending former No. 1 pick Rick Asadoorian and another minor leaguer to the Cardinals for him.
Tonight (6:05) will mark his first American League start, though he did pitch for Montreal in Fenway Park two years ago, suffering a loss.
"It's going to be a blast," said Hermanson. "But I know I can't be too aggressive or I'll get too wild out there and I'll be trying too hard. There are times I have to learn to step back and control my intensity. Sometimes I have a tendency to throw six or seven pitches before I'm able to step back and make adjustments."
One adjustment Hermanson has been trying to make is to come up with a changeup to complement his sizzling fastball and hard breaking ball. He has been working on the pitch for a few years, but paid special attention to it this spring, and suffered through some ups and downs as a result.
It seems to have finally sunk in to Hermanson, the Padres' first-round pick and the third selection overall in the 1994 draft, that he should use the changeup more often.
His second-half success in his career probably should have drummed that into his head earlier. Hermanson was 6-7 with a 5.19 earned-run average before the All-Star break and 8-6, 3.60 after it last year. For his career, Hermanson, 29, is 27-33, 4.86 before the break, and 34-28, 3.65 after it, variations he credits to his changeup.
"It seems like I go into a season wanting to blow people away I'm so excited," said Hermanson, the Expos' Opening Day starter in 1999 and 2000. "But then in the second half I'd mix in more changeups.
"I came up throwing 100 miles an hour, but they hit that in the big leagues," said Hermanson, who made his major-league debut in 1995 for the Padres. "Now, if I change speeds, then when I go back to the fastball and if I throw it at 94, it looks like 104 to the hitter. You can tell by the batters' swings."
Hermanson's first year with the Expos was 1997, which also happened to be Pedro Martinez's last year in Montreal. Hermanson paid attention to Pedro, who won a Cy Young Award that season.
"I learned the most I ever learned in a year that year by watching Pedro," said Hermanson. "He's not scared of anybody. That's the way I am. I'm never intimidated. I'm the intimidator. I'm too intimidating sometimes. Sometimes I intimidate myself."
And if he weren't a pitcher, what career path might he have taken?
"When I was in school (Kent State), I was thinking I might be an anesthesiologist," said Hermanson, an academic all-conference selection his senior year. "Put people out with smiles on their faces."
Now, he's getting paid to just get people out, even if he doesn't expect them to be smiling when he does so. And he starts his job for the Red Sox tonight.
