Ice baths and cold beers: How starting pitchers decompress after games

TORONTO — Logan Gilbert had plenty to think about following his start against the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday afternoon at Rogers Centre. Foremost on his mind was likely the hanging slider he left in the middle of the plate that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. crushed 459 feet at a stunning 114.3 m.p.h. 

However, there was also an abundance of good in Gilbert’s outing. The talented right-hander kept his Seattle Mariners in the contest by limiting the Blue Jays to just the one run on five hits over 7.2 impressive innings. He left with the game in a 1-1 tie that was eventually broken by Cal Raleigh’s two-run homer in the 10^th that paved the way for the Mariners to avoid a series sweep.

Gilbert made only one mistake and when he first reached the majors in 2021, this was the type of outing that would drive him crazy. Back then, the right-hander found it incredibly hard to decompress following his starts. He couldn't seem to expel the adrenaline in his system and the result was that he’d be wired for hours, ruminating on nearly every pitch he'd thrown. 

"It's easy to tell yourself to just, 'Check out,' or whatever, but it's not always that way," Gilbert says. 

A few years ago, though, Gilbert finally found a remedy that worked. The player facilities at T-Mobile Park in Seattle feature a sauna and ice bath, both of which Gilbert uses to help him unplug and mentally separate his day. 

"It's almost like a shock of the body," says the 26-year-old. "If I'm able to do both, it's such extreme exposure [to distress] that my brain and my body almost zap out." 

The dilemma that Gilbert faced is nothing new to starting pitchers. Their job comes with more pressure than any other position, and the work that goes into start days begins well in advance of first pitch. Generations of hurlers have grappled with figuring out a way to reset following that extended period of staying in the zone. 

"We as starters begin to get into a mindset hours before the game," says Blue Jays right-hander Kevin Gausman. "And if we do well, then we're pitching for three hours. [That means] we've been locked in for six hours. I chew a lot of gum so the longer my outings, the more sore my jaw is going to be the next day."

Each pitcher employs a different method to come down when their outing concludes. Like Gilbert, Gausman prefers to jump into a tub filled with ice and water. But instead of allowing the discomfort to rid his mind of what happened in the game, Gausman opts to dig deeper and analyze. 

"That's my time to just sit there and reflect on the game," says Gausman. "I'm usually thinking about every pitch that I threw. It's hard for me to not think about that, knowing that I'm only going to make 30-something of these in a year. I really want to be as good as I can every time I go out there."

Fellow Blue Jays starter Bowden Francis uses deep breathing to regulate after he exits a game. He learned how to do that from a mentor in Arizona and has made it an essential part of his routine. 

"After an outing I'll just sit down for five minutes and don't go on my phone," Francis says. "Really breathe in and really soak in what just happened in the game. And be grateful for it."

Pat Hentgen, a former Cy Young winner who spent most of his 14-year big-league career with the Blue Jays, applied a radically different approach. 

"I usually cracked a [Labatt] Blue Light," Hentgen says with a laugh. 

"You come out in the seventh inning and after your inherited runners were off the field and the inning was over, you shook the reliever's hand, went in and watched the game on the monitor," recalls Hentgen. "At that time, I usually did my shoulder routine while having a Blue Light and watching the game."

Hentgen says he felt immense pressure when he was a young hurler in the process of making a name for himself. A pitcher's win count and overall record mattered in the 1990s and that only added to the weight. 

Another trick Hentgen used to bring himself back to reality was to call his father. He did that as soon as he reached home from the ballpark on start days. 

"Whether I did good or bad, he could keep me humble or help me with my confidence and keep me from jumping off the ship," says Hentgen, whose 107 wins with the Blue Jays rank fifth in franchise history. "Having someone to talk to is helpful."

Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker has spent many hours as a sounding board for pitchers. Yet, during his own playing days, he also battled the familiar struggle.

"When that game was over I was very high adrenaline," Walker says. "I had a tough time decompressing. Some guys are better at it, but for me, it just took me a few hours to really come down after a game. The intensity was still there."

Eventually, Walker learned to accept that for him, the best time to flush everything from his system would actually arrive the next morning during a long-distance run. 

"I would go out for a 30- to 40-minute run and get a great sweat,” says Walker. “I would go over the game in my head, think about things that I did well, think about things I didn't do well, and, by the end of that run, I learned from it. I literally flushed it and then I was prepared for my next outing. That was big for me and I think a lot of starters did that back then."

Part of Walker's current role requires him to understand how different pitchers on his staff internalize their own performances. Chris Bassitt, for instance, is so vocal in the dugout during his starts that he almost decompresses in real-time. 

"He does a better job of doing it during the game so at the end of the game, there's not as much to talk about," says Walker. "Every pitcher is different. You kind of feel them out during the course of the game, what they want to talk about, inning by inning. If there's something you really need to bring up, you do it post-game. Usually, it's a small conversation about some things they did — maybe a pitch or two that we could have back or maybe done differently. 

"With younger guys, it's really important to them to watch them a little bit,” adds the pitching coach. “Find out if they are taking that home with them and if it's wearing on them the next day. If you see them come to the park and they're kind of down, those are the situations we want to get rid of. We don't want them to dwell on it."

That's exactly what happened to Gilbert during his early days as a Mariners starter. Now, he's as consistent as ever — his 396.2 innings since 2022 are third most in the American League — but when he was getting his feet wet there would be times he was so jittery that he'd lie awake in bed at 3 a.m. struggling to process his performance. It became an ugly pattern and Gilbert figured he needed to change something. 

He began to use music, prayer and deep breathing to calm himself and also logged his thoughts into a journal. Those methods, in addition to his trips to the sauna and ice bath, have seemingly made a difference for Gilbert.

"Whatever it is externally that kind of helps you flip off the switch," he says. "I'm trying to find a way to separate. I'm not the best at it. I'm still learning, but it's gotten a lot better."