Humble attitude, strong work ethic fuel Papelbon

Josh Papelbon had to check his ego at the door when he decided to try this professional baseball thing.

That was nothing new to the young pitcher. He grew up in a competitive home with two brothers, both of whom devel-oped into professional hurlers.

Josh, 25, is the youngest brother by a minute. His twin brother Jeremy is a pitcher in the Cubs organization, and his old-est brother Jonathan has already won a World Series ring in his five seasons as the Boston Red Sox closer.

To stay on par with his siblings, Josh always felt he had to stay humble and put in extra work.

“I’m the youngest and Jonathan and Jeremy always excelled, and I was just trying to find my niche on how to excel, how to compete with my brothers because we were always competing in something,” said Papelbon, who was drafted by the Red Sox in the 48th round (1,433rd pick) of the 2006 draft.

Papelbon, a reliever with the Salem Red Sox, has put that attitude to work as he experiences the sometimes-cruel reality of playing minor league baseball.

He pitched a scoreless eighth inning Sunday at Winston-Salem to pick up his third win of the season. Two days later, the Red Sox put him on the “phantom” seven-day disabled list, not because of an injury but in his words, “to make room for our big-money guys.”

When he pitches next is anybody’s guess, but his attitude hasn’t changed. He’ll keep working hard and prepare himself for his next outing, whenever that may be.

“Being a 48th rounder and signing for 1,000 bucks, it’s not like you’re going to get a world of opportunities, and I knew that coming in,” said Papelbon, who is 3-1 with a 4.98 earned run average this season. “It’s not like I’m sitting here trying to say I deserve this or that. You make the best of it, and that’s what you can do.”

Like Jonathan, Josh didn’t start pitching until his senior year of high school.

Once he started throwing, he didn’t want to stop. He loved the feeling of having the ball in his hands for every pitch.

It wasn’t until his first year at North Florida University that he tried the submarine delivery that helped him get drafted. He was throwing in the bullpen and his coach suggested he try the lower arm angle.

The results were telling. He ended up recording a school-record 24 saves in his three years at North Florida and drew the notice of professional scouts.

His unique delivery could help him even more down the road.

“It gives him an advantage, because there’s not many guys that throw the ball from that lower angle,” said Salem pitching coach Dick Such. “He does work very hard. He’s very cerebral. He really works on, when he’s throwing in the pen, on locat-ing different pitches, working different types of hitters. He’s always in the game that way, whether he’s pitching that day or not.”

Papelbon has been working on a changeup and slider to add to his low-80s fastball. He has been happy with the results for the most part.

“I kind of developed in ways I didn’t think I would ever develop,” Papelbon said. “In college, and up into really (Low-A) Greenville (in 2007), all I threw was fastballs. I was able to get by on just fastballs, and now implementing a slider and a changeup has been my big project. … It’s been phenomenal for me when it actually works, when it actually slides and actu-ally changes.”

He’s had a great support system to share ideas and experiences. He speaks often with his brothers. They talk about life, and though they’re all different pitchers – Jonathan a power-pitching righty, Jeremy a southpaw, Josh a submariner – they still like to talk about their craft.

Josh is a right-hander like Jonathan, so he can pick his older brother’s brain about pitch selection and how to approach left-handed batters.

“He’s been at every level and he’s seen it all, pretty much,” Josh said of Jonathan. “We talk a lot of shop.”

Josh has witnessed first-hand his older brother’s maturation to elite major league closer.

He says it’s given him a “glimmer of hope” of making it to the big leagues one day.

He has the work ethic and the right attitude. Maybe one day he’ll join his big brother in Boston.

“I just want to make it to the bigs,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s middle relief, short relief, long relief, setup, closing, it doesn’t matter to me.”