Thole more comfortable handling adversity

DETROIT

Josh Thole took plenty of heat in May for his much-publicized exit from Twitter, but there was more at stake for him personally at the time than his relationship with an unhappy fan base.

Thole, only 24 and without a full season in the majors, was batting .234 and was worried about his future. This was not how his season was supposed to start, not after the Mets had handed him the starting catcher's job based on his strong finish the previous year.

"I will go through nothing like that ever again," Thole said this week at Comerica Park. "It was every day. It was the hardest thing I've ever been through. When you're going out there busting your butt and you don't get a hit, and then the catching is not going like you want it to go, it just builds up. It's hard. It's stressful.

"You're thinking to yourself it can't get any worse, and the next day, something more happens, and then you think about your job. You really do. I can't tell you how many times I thought, I gotta get this thing going."

The words are surprising coming from Thole, whose amiable demeanor never lets on to whatever pressures are roiling inside him. It wasn't easy when Terry Collins benched him to "clear his head a little bit," a rather innocuous term that serves as a final notice for a struggling player to either straighten things out or face the consequences.

It never got to the "or else" part for Thole, but there were adjustments made as Collins shifted to veteran Ronny Paulino as the personal catcher for Mike Pelfrey. Even though Collins went back to Thole for Pelfrey's start Thursday against the Tigers -- Paulino was nursing a stiff back -- the manager has leaned more on Paulino to fortify a lineup that had sputtered before the past week's record-setting outbursts against the Tigers and Rangers.

"Catchers don't take it personally," Thole said of the Pelfrey-Paulino dynamic. "And if you do, you have an ego problem. I don't have an ego problem."

From an offensive standpoint, Thole no longer is a liability. He was hitting .345 (20-for-58) with four doubles, a home run and 10 RBIs in his last 10 games entering Thursday. After batting .212 (11-for-52) in May, Thole hit .326 (15-for-46) with a .446 on-base percentage in June.

On Tuesday, before the grand slam barrage, Thole actually kick-started the party with a two-out homer in the fourth. It was the team's first home run in a week and Thole's first of the season, but he was reduced to a footnote on the historic night. By that point, batting coach Dave Hudgens was satisfied that Thole had found his way.

"The way he uses the whole field, he can hit .300 with a .370 on-base percentage," Hudgens said. "He just has to stay away from swinging at balls that are real marginal or out of the strike zone. I think that's when he gets in trouble."

That's the tricky part. Unless a hitter gets the pitch he's looking for right away, Hudgens preaches to take pitches early in the count. But practicing that patience can be tough in desperate times, and Thole remembers them well.

Those were the periods of swinging at a series of curveballs in the dirt and then berating himself for falling for the same ploy on a daily basis. Thole had to remind himself that it basically was the same principle he was using behind the plate as opposed to standing beside it.

"I think hitting is the hardest," Thole said. "I really do. Catching is all about confidence and conviction in what you want to do, and being on the same page with the pitcher. You kind of ride the wave hitting. Catching is more like getting in a rhythm."

With the calendar flipping to July, Thole finally feels as if his career is back in sync, too. Even with his wife, Kathryn, expecting the couple's first child any minute, Thole is ready for whatever comes his way.

"Last year, when I struggled in the minor leagues, I thought I had it figured out," Thole said. "But the next rough patch I go through isn't going to be my last time going through this. Now I really know what direction I have to keep my head in, the things I have to do, because I have struggled here.

"In the bigs, you have to face it every day, you learn how to deal with it, and you have to know as a hitter what gets you back to a certain place."