"Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don't move."--- Satchel Paige

It didn't take Kevin Slowey long to realize he really couldn't throw heat.

So he learned to adapt.

"My entire life, I've never really been able to throw it that hard," says the 22-year-old Rochester Red Wings pitcher. "I knew I'd have to find a different way of getting guys out."

In Little League, then in high school, then at Winthrop University, Slowey mastered the lost baseball art of control. With a fastball that never came close to 90 mph, he learned how to work the plate, how to pitch with pinpoint accuracy, how to strike batters out without having to blow it by them.

By the time the Minnesota Twins took him in the second round of the 2005 draft, Slowey had become the quintessential control pitcher.

During the 2006 Minor League season, first at Single-A Fort Myers, then at Double-A New Britain, Slowey posted a cumulative ERA of 1.88, the lowest of any pitcher in the Twins' farm system. Perhaps even more impressively, he notched 151 K's while walking a miniscule 22 batters.

His performance catapulted him into the upper echelon of Minor League pitching prospects, and he most likely has a bright future in the Show.

This season, Slowey is one-fifth of the Red Wings' starting rotation --- a rotation that could be the best in the Triple AAA International League.

He also has a Rochester connection: as a kid he lived in Perinton for several years, going with his family to watch the Wings play at long-gone Silver Stadium.

But when Wings' fans watch him pitch this season, they probably won't think of him as a former Rochester youth. They'll think of him as the guy who can pick batters apart.

"This is a guy who'll attack the strike zone," says Wings manager Stan Cliburn. "He'll go right after hitters."

Perhaps unfortunately, this season Slowey might be overshadowed a bit, at least at first, by fellow Wings pitcher Matt Garza, USA Today's 2006 Minor League Player of the Year who, compared to Slowey --- an unassuming guy with close-cropped hair and wire-rim glasses --- comes across as the team's rock star.

But for Cliburn, Slowey might be the most important part of the Wings' rotation.

"He's right at the top of my list," the manager says. "Kevin Slowey, to me, is the one I'm really excited about. He caught my eye from Day 1."

For Slowey, being a control pitcher sort of comes naturally, but mainly it's an ability that's honed over years of hard work.

"You work just as hard as a power pitcher does," he says, then adds a sentence that eerily echoes the legendary Satchel Paige. "You have to work hard to throw the ball where you want."

Of course, being a hot prospect, and being a great pitcher in a great rotation for a team that made it to the IL finals a year ago, comes with an expected amount of pressure --- pressure that will only build as the Wings launch their 2007 season.

But Slowey sloughs it off.

"You feel pressure, but it's like every other job," he says. "Everybody feels pressure in their job. As a pitcher, you don't feel more or less than anyone else. There's pressure to get the job done. Ultimately, all you can do is the best you can."

Which, in Slowey's case, is pretty darn good.

"I've never known this guy to have pressure," Cliburn says. "He's a confident young man. He has that special air. It's not a cockiness, it's a confidence."

It's that confidence, that utmost faith in one's ability to locate the ball wherever you want, to challenge a batter to beat you. Go ahead. Try to hit it. I dare you.

It's a confidence all great control pitchers have. Mike Mussina has it. Greg Maddux has it. And you can bet Satch had it.

Home plate don't move --- it don't move because it's all yours. And right now, it's all Kevin Slowey's.

The Rochester Red Wings host Norfolk Wednesday and Thursday, April 11 and 12, then welcome Charlotte for a four-game series starting Friday, April 13. Single-game tickets run from $6 to $10 and can be purchased at the team's box office at Frontier Field or by calling 423-9464. If you can't make it to the ballpark, the Wings just signed a long-term deal with Time Warner Cable to broadcast a slew of live and tape-delayed Wings games on cable channel 26. For schedules or more information, go to www.redwingsbaseball.com.