(FROM NESN.COM)

Organizations like the Red Sox would love to be able to bide their
time and make sure that each player gets his necessary work at every
level of the minor leagues. Rushing a player, especially a pitcher, is
not anything an organization sets out to do, unless he’s something
special.

Daniel Bard was on that ordinary path to start his
professional career. He spent a year and a half bouncing around Single-A
stops, the first full season of which saw him struggle mightily as a
starter. Yet, there are guys that are downright impossible to keep down.

Such
was the case with Bard once he found his groove as a reliever. There
were 31 games at the Double-A level in the latter half of 2008,
resulting in a 1.99 ERA and 64 strikeouts in 49 2/3 innings. The obvious
next step to Triple-A in 2009 only saw him get better. It was as if
Bard was racing that natural progression, as if he had to get to the
majors before a certain date which was closing fast.

He would get
a boost with a visit to the big league camp during the 2009 spring
training, where he managed to draw attention with a simple bullpen
session early on, and then with some eye-popping game action. After one
particularly impressive performance against the Puerto Rico national
team preparing for the World Baseball Classic, Bard was the talk of the
camp.

“That was worth showing up for today,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona
said after Bard threw two scoreless innings that day in early March.
“That was two really exciting innings. With young players, but young
pitchers in particular, you’re going to see some ups, some downs, some
in betweens. Today was the up.”

There would be more.

It
was just over two months later that Bard, who struck out an almost
unfathomable 29 men in 16 innings while posting a 1.12 ERA as the
short-time closer for Pawtucket, was called up. He was impossible to
keep down, and he wasted no time whatsoever in letting the organization
know that his skills would translate.

In his first outing as a major leaguer on May 13, 2009, at Anaheim, Bard faced Angels catcher Mike Napoli,
who had 22 hits in his previous 56 at-bats (.393) and had already hit a
three-run homer in that day’s contest, to start things off. Bard threw a
96 mph fastball for a swinging strike. Bard then threw a another 96 mph
fastball for another swinging strike. He finished a foreshadowing first
at-bat with a 98 mph fastball for a third straight swinging strike.
Major League Baseball, meet Daniel Bard.

“He kind of blew my doors off there,” Napoli said after the game.

Bard
threw two scoreless frames that night and allowed only one earned run
in his first 12 innings as a major leaguer. Over the span of 14 innings
in 12 outings from June 28-Aug. 1, he yielded a grand total of four
hits. There were no runs, no walks and 23 strikeouts. Roughly two years
after he couldn’t get an out against Single-A hitters, Bard was the best
reliever the Red Sox had, including Jonathan Papelbon.

And
that’s where it all started. Bard would not need that full season at
Double-A, or Triple-A, for that matter. He threw fewer than 70 innings
at those two levels combined. He was a major leaguer, and a darn good
one.

Thing is, he would get even better, and in keeping with his
rise in the minors, it would take almost no time at all to make that
leap.