D-backs players are like school kids with their pre-game routines

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – It’s routine a kid does over and over again. Wake up. Eat breakfast. Watch a cartoon. Go to school.

Grown kids in baseball uniforms are much the same with their long, 162-game “school’’ year. It’s all about pre-game routines for them, too.

Like D-backs pitcher Archie Bradley.

“Last year, part of it (his routine) was going to eat breakfast with my roommate, Jake Lamb,” he said. “It didn’t necessarily have to be a certain spot or a certain place every time but we would always get up and go eat breakfast together on my start day.”

Bradley then rotated between shaving his face clean and trimming. The former Oklahoma prep star then dressed and headed to the ballpark.

“There is a shirt I would wear, a Brian Bosworth shirt. That was kind of my favorite shirt last year so that’s what I would wear on start day with my favorite pair of Jordans and that was my game day outfit.”

Bradley also called his parents on the days the started. As he heads into a new season, he plans on creating a different routine.

“You change up the routine a little bit. If you are pitching well, you kind of stay on it. It’s kind of a comfort level.”

Catcher Chris Herrmann has a routine that revolves around food.

“I wake up, get something small to eat and then head to the field and get some more food,” he said. “Whenever I get to the locker room, I just hang out for a little bit and get my bat and go to the cage. I will hit a little bit, go outside, maybe throw a little bit and then eat again. There is a lot of eating involved.”

Herrmann has a method for putting his uniform on for the game.

“I always put my uniform on the same way. It’s kind of like something that I have always done. I start from my feet first all the way up to my top. Once I get out there (the field), I do the same stretches every day.”

Reliever Brad Ziegler developed a routine 10 years ago but it only lasted a couple of games because it wasn’t helping him.

“I have kind of learned that if I try to do something pre-game, it ends up getting me so focused that by the time I pitch at the end of the game… a lot of times I am focused at the beginning then I will get tired as the game goes on because adrenaline wears off,” he said. “I don’t do anything before the game. As long as I am ready by the time the National Anthem goes, I am good.”