This one moment put Williams on All-Star path

SEATTLE -- Devin Williams is the rare All-Star who can pinpoint the precise moment his career took a turn toward baseball’s Midsummer Classic.

It was April 24, 2019, an unremarkable Wednesday night in Biloxi, Miss., home of the Brewers’ Double-A club. Williams was in his second season removed from Tommy John surgery and a comeback so grueling that there were times he seriously considered quitting baseball. In the aftermath of a 5.82 ERA in 2018, at 24 years old and coming up on six years of pro ball, he was spent.

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“I was done with it,” Williams said. “I wanted a break.”

The fact he’s at his second straight All-Star Game, with the 2020 National League Rookie of the Year Award on his resume and a changeup so uniquely wicked it has a nickname, “The Airbender,” means that Williams stuck with baseball. Williams opted not to pitch in the All-Star Game after pitching for the Brewers on five of the final eight days of the first half, but he's an All-Star nonetheless. All because of one particular Wednesday night in Biloxi.

Having moved to the bullpen at the start of the 2019 season, he took over in the sixth inning with the Shuckers trailing visiting Jacksonville, 7-4. Almost immediately, it was a study in frustration. The leadoff hitter struck out but reached on a wild pitch. There was a passed ball. A walk to the opposing pitcher. An infield single for a run. Two more singles and a sacrifice fly.

Suddenly, it was 11-4 and Williams had only one out.

“I got pissed and I was like, ‘I’m just going to throw it as hard as I can,’” he said.

It felt good. A pair of scoreless outings followed in Chattanooga before the Shuckers went to Pensacola, where Williams struck out four batters in two scoreless innings while monitoring a velocity board right behind home plate.

“You can’t help but see it,” he said. “Every time I would catch the ball back from the catcher, it was right behind him. I threw the first pitch and it was 96 mph. I was like, ‘I didn’t even really try that hard on that one.’ That outing it was 97, 97, 98. That was where it all started to click.”

It was a long time coming.

“He wears his emotions on his sleeve when things aren’t going well,” said Chris Hook, the Brewers’ pitching coach since 2019, who was the organization’s roving pitching coordinator before that. “I just remember watching the throwing program and him being so upset. It was his first year back, so he’s feeling that out, and it wasn't coming quick enough for him.

“He was beating his head against the wall.”

A year later, Hook remembers getting an excited call from Brewers front-office official Karl Mueller with news of 98 mph fastballs.

Williams had turned a corner.

“I just think it’s a message for all of our Minor League guys, like, this is not always going to be linear,” Hook said. “The game is going to punch you in the face.”

Williams made the All-Star Futures Game in 2019, then earned a callup to the Majors for an Aug. 7 debut against the Pirates. Incredibly, it was only 105 days from the night Williams tried throwing as hard as he could in Biloxi.

“I think your body has a governor, like on a car,” Williams said. “It only lets you go this fast, but you can go faster. It’s like you have to break that governor mentally. I unlocked that, and it’s what got me here. I’m not throwing 98, 99 mph anymore right now, but I would say I’m definitely a better pitcher right now than I was then.”

He’s a better pitcher because of one particularly special pitch. When baseball shut down during the pandemic in 2020, Williams went home to St. Louis and kept his arm in shape during workouts at St. John Vianney High School, where Williams faced college baseball players and Minor Leaguers. He stopped focusing on the velocity of his changeup and focused more on movement.

Williams had honed it while playing catch with high school teammates, just to see if he could make them miss. Now, it was becoming something different -- what would come to be called The Airbender. When the Brewers gathered in Milwaukee for Summer Camp, he heard similar reactions as the team prepped for the strange, 60-game, empty-stadium regular season.

“I remember Jedd Gyorko saying, ‘I don’t even want to face you. I don’t even know what the hell that is,’” Williams said. “That gave me more confidence and I carried it into the season.”

He’s never looked back.

“He's been great," said fellow Brewers All-Star Corbin Burnes, who joined Williams on the NL roster over the weekend. "Hopefully he gets to do it as many years as he wants to because he's been great for us, he's been big. Without him out there, we definitely wouldn't be in the position we are."