FORT MYERS, Fla. — In the mundanity of morning in March, Andrew Bailey turned the goal into a game.
Johan Oviedo was scheduled for a bullpen session, a routine between-starts occurrence. Bailey, the Red Sox’ pitching coach, wanted him to throw strikes, so he threw down a challenge: Land at least 12 of 20 pitches in the zone, and Oviedo wins.
The defined terms unleashed the competitor in Oviedo. Needing to nail each of the final three pitches to hit the threshold, he did so, nipping the edges at that. The 6-foot-6-inch, 275-pound, usually straightlaced righthander broke into a beaming smile.
Bailey, amped in reciprocation, was emphatic: If Oviedo throws strikes at that rate — getting close to two out of every three pitches — “you will carve” up opposing hitters, he told him.
“Maybe I should make it like a carnival,” Bailey said afterward. “Put stuffed animals up there to win.”
It was one in a series of moments pitcher and coach have shared this spring training, all centered around the Red Sox’ belief that Oviedo, a physical beast, can be a statistical beast, too, in his first season with the team.
A major key: Stay comfortable pounding the strike zone “relentlessly,” the foundational element of pitching that nonetheless has been a focus area for Oviedo in camp.
It sounds obvious. And it is obvious. But the philosophy and the why has taken some discussion. And Oviedo has taken it to heart.
“I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of throwing strikes,” said Oviedo, who will start against the Rays on Friday. “Sometimes as a pitcher, you want to be picky about your execution. You want to throw the nastier slider or nastier curveball or the perfect fastball location. And that’s why, sometimes, we get distracted. We’re trying to be perfect and picky.
“And what happens with that is, you get out of your goal, which is being in the zone. That’s one of the things that happens against me. Sometimes I want to be so fine with my arsenal that — not that I forget, but I literally don’t do what I’m supposed to do, which is just being in the zone.”
Bailey imparted this lesson when he called Oviedo into a Fenway South video room for a late February sitdown. Oviedo had just endured a messy exhibition debut, walking three in 1⅔ innings against the Twins (on a day when illness didn’t help).
Before Oviedo’s next outing, Bailey wanted to make sure he understood: When Oviedo throws strikes, hitters simply do not hit him well. So … just throw strikes. Don’t worry about where within the zone the pitches end up. It’ll be fine.
The coach came prepared with video and numbers and data, and he asked Oviedo which pitchers around the league he enjoyed watching. Then he compared some of their numbers — along the lines of swing-and-miss rate and average, and especially slugging percentage, on strikes — to Oviedo’s.
“The likes of [Shohei] Ohtani and [Garrett] Crochet and [Bryan] Woo and [Hunter] Greene, [Carlos] Rodón, [Jacob] deGrom, and anybody — and where he stacks up with those guys when he’s in-zone,” Bailey said. “Just gave him a simple and clear understanding of how his stuff plays in-zone relative to some of the greats in our game. It was maybe a little bit of a clearer picture for him than maybe he had seen in the past.”
Oviedo said: “It’s a good reminder of what you are capable of doing.”
The most bottom-line piece of it: Oviedo is better off having a pitch miss over the middle of the plate than outside the zone completely, he said.
The gory pitching details of Oviedo’s natural talent — release point, extension, vertical movement — make it such that pinpoint control isn’t as important.
“A lot of pitchers have to hit targets or make better execution by mixing pitches. For me, it’s more about being in the zone,” he said. “I don’t have to make some emphasis about where the ball is going to go, because when it’s in the zone, it plays. Even if sometimes it is in the middle.”
Bailey said: “Move away from shapes, move away from finite spots. [In a bullpen session,] here’s two dummies with a zone. Can you put it there? Simple and clear.”
In two games since their chat, Oviedo has walked none and struck out eight in 6⅓ innings.
It is the smallest of samples. But the Red Sox are encouraged.
“His work is off the charts,” Bailey said. “His consistency has been great, and we’re really excited to continue to stack good routines between outings — and then, obviously, hopefully stacking good results on the field, as well.”
The Bailey-Oviedo dynamic serves as a case study in relationship-building.
The Red Sox acquired Oviedo, 28, from the Pirates in December, believing they can help him be more than the 4.24 ERA starter he was over parts of five seasons with St. Louis and Pittsburgh.
Bailey did what he could to get to know him in the ensuing weeks, including video calls and texts and one visit in Fort Myers, when Bailey happened to be in town and Oviedo drove over from his South Florida home.
But none of that compares to the grind of spring training, when proximity and frequency help everybody get to know everybody. Bailey wanted to learn not just the pitcher but the human, his story, what makes him tick.
“It doesn’t feel like a coach [talking] to a player. It feels more like a family type of way. I’ve been feeling really welcomed by him and the whole pitching staff,” Oviedo said. “You always trust in your stuff and what you can do out there. But having friends, coaches, teammates recognize that and letting you know, besides yourself, it gives you more confidence and more purpose to keep doing what you’re doing.”
Oviedo, a Cuba native, speaks English (and routinely gives interviews in English). To be absolutely sure the perhaps technical points were being understood during that video-room chat, Bailey enlisted the help of Carlos Villoria-Benítez, the Sox’ Spanish-language interpreter.
“We’ll continue to run that play out and continue to adjust as needed, but it’s been exciting to watch him do his thing out there and have the success he’s having,” Bailey said.
As the Red Sox’ March 26 Opening Day nears, Oviedo is the favorite to secure the lone opening in the rotation. He would join Crochet, Ranger Suarez, Sonny Gray, and Brayan Bello.
“Understanding where he fits in that landscape and where he fits on the team is really valuable to him,” Bailey said. “So just trying to pull the curtain a little bit for him on that, to know that we’re going to love him and support him and challenge him every step along the way. Trust isn’t just about feeding players things they want to hear. It’s about challenging them appropriately to do better. And I think that resonates with him. He wants to be challenged. He wants to be coached.”
The Red Sox are dreaming big in 2026. Oviedo is a part of that.
“Ovi values family and trust and those things. He doesn’t just value numbers in a game. And there’s deeper levels to Ovi that I’m trying to continue to build, and the trust is huge,” Bailey said. “We love him as a person, and he’s going to help us win multiple championships. That’s the goal. And he’s all bought in on that.”
Tim Healey can be reached at timothy.healey@globe.com. Follow him @timbhealey.