Yohan Ramirez felt as if his career needed a jump-start after pitching to mixed results from the bullpen for the Pirates and White Sox last season.
PORT ST. LUCIE — Yohan Ramirez felt as if his career needed a jump-start after pitching to mixed results from the bullpen for the Pirates and White Sox last season.
The right-hander returned home to the Dominican Republic and was soon receiving a Ph.D on his craft from a Hall of Famer and his brother, another successful former major league pitcher.
This spring, the 28-year-old Ramirez has felt reenergized as he attempts to secure a spot on the Mets’ Opening Day roster. For that, he owes a debt of gratitude to Pedro and Ramon Martinez.
“It’s a beautiful thing, and it was exciting for me to be able to learn from them,” Ramirez said Saturday through an interpreter at Clover Park. “It almost reenergizes me and helps me reinvent my career from learning from them, just to be able to take away the special things they were able to do and put it into my game.”
It was Ramirez’s agent Fern Cuza — he also represented the Martinez brothers during their respective careers — that arranged for the sessions.
Ramirez said much of the instruction was just discussing how to approach certain situations.
