By John Klima
Staff Writer

September 5, 2008

Chad Qualls possess a sidearm delivery reminiscent of a kid throwing rocks and a fastball that runs as unpredictably as a hyperactive house cat. His style was called unconventional, his path has been unpredictable, but his results reflect the highest term a successful pitcher can earn: predictable.

“I was always kind of funky,” Qualls said. “Everybody always used to say I was elbows and (posteriors) coming at you. When someone sees me on the mound, they see I’m not a conventional reliever.”

Qualls has one of those baseball jobs where if nobody knows who you are, you’re good at what you do. He never envisioned that he would become one of the National League’s most resilient and successful middle relievers, a sinker throwing worm killer who marks success by creating grass-stained and dirt-scuffed baseballs to be discarded.

Qualls envisioned himself as a starter until a few weeks before he arrived in the majors in 2004 and accepted that becoming a reliever did not mean that he was going to be discarded.

Qualls swallowed hard and muttered some dirty words. He feared for his future. It wasn’t in his nature to surrender, but he could see the practicality. When Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Roy Oswalt blocked him, the bullpen wasn’t such a bad idea.

“When they told me in Triple-A that I was going to be a reliever, I thought it was a demotion,” he said. “They sat me down and said, ‘Look, this is a way to get to the big leagues.’ Finally, I looked at it that way. I threw well and got called up.”

He won’t be going down any time soon. He has pitched in 66 games for the Diamondbacks this year and will likely pitch more than 70 games for the fourth consecutive year. His present ERA (3.30) is a few points lower than his career ERA (3.39), though he has a career-high eight loses. He is fourth in the NL in holds.

If you’re one for statistics, Qualls is the 45th player in major league history whose last name begins with Q. Dan Quisenberry, the submarine closer for the 1980s Kansas City Royals, is not a relative of the former Narbonne pitcher who was born in Lomita and has a home in Redondo, but he is a baseball descendent. Who cares how you throw when you get results? Actually, the answer is usually too many coaches who want to break what isn’t broken. Qualls realizes his fortune in two respects.

One, his arm is resilient, but he refuses to take it for granted.

“You have to work at being healthy. It just doesn’t come,” he said. “You do a lot of rotator cuff (exercises) because there are so many little things that can go wrong. You have to listen to your body. When you’re not feeling good, you may have to take a day here, take a day there.”

He knows he is fortunate to be able to do what many starters fail to do if they are converted.

“It’s good fortune,” he said. “A lot of guys have a really strong arm and do all their exercises but can’t stay healthy. I don’t know what it is. It might just be the make-up of your arm. Some people just can’t handle it.”

Qualls wouldn’t suggest that pitchers imitate him. He found his future in flustering the mold. This is a law of baseball: he who looks or does anything different shall immediately be called out.

“My mechanics won’t work for somebody else,” he said, an outlook that qualifies his personality as well as his pitching. “Mark Prior was bred to have the perfect mechanics, the perfect everything, and he’s been hurt a lot. Nothing against him, but he just can’t stay healthy. My mechanics work for me.”

Qualls said the only thing anybody changed with him was when the Astros introduced the two-seam fastball to him in Double-A. Boy, meet sinker. Meet the bullpen and spend the rest of your life in love.

“Who knows where I would be if I was still a starting pitcher," he said. "Relieving got me to the big leagues and here it is four years later. I’m going to keep plugging to stay here for another four, another six years.”

By then, his fastball might move so much that hitters might wonder if their eyesight is blurry. It wouldn’t be the first time Qualls’s look is deceiving.