"We were about halfway through spring training and I said, 'Hey, I want to have as much confidence in you as everybody else, but I'd kind of like to see you throw the ball a little better, with some better results,"' Hillman said. "He didn't perform very well last spring."

Bannister didn't exactly set the league on fire during the season, either. While his wife struggled with a difficult pregnancy with their first child, Bannister saw his ERA balloon to 5.76 and his record slump to 9-16.

Lacking power, Bannister is a pitcher who must depend on timing and location to keep hitters off balance. When he doesn't have precise location, he's in trouble. Last year, he ended up allowing 29 homers, third-most in the league.

"Last year was rough," he said.

But then came Oct. 11, when Brynn Bannister came into the world. A few days later, mother and daughter went home healthy and happy.

Maybe it's a coincidence, but Hillman's spring training message changed entirely after Bannister breezed through two perfect innings against San Diego in his first appearance.

"I told him ... that was the best spring training outing I'd ever seen from him," Hillman said.

Bannister's second outing was not quite as sharp. Against Texas on Wednesday, he allowed two runs and three hits over two innings. On his last pitch, he got All-Star slugger Josh Hamilton on a called third strike.

But everything feels better than it did last March, or even last September. The final spot in the rotation may come down to Bannister and Luke Hochevar, a former No. 1 draft choice.

Bannister is starting to like his chances.

"I made the changes I wanted to make in the offseason," he said. "We worked hard, broke things down on video. I decided to just get back to being aggressive, keeping the ball down, and going right after hitters.

"It takes full confidence in yourself to be able to do that. You have to just know that you're prepared and you're ready to say, 'Here it is, hit it.' It takes time. I've always been known as a control guy. But every now and then you've got to let that thing fly. I think I held back a little bit last year."

He's carefully working on certain pitches in the early going, not depending on the cut fastballs he threw perhaps half the time last year.

"I'm sort of out of my comfort zone. But I throw the same pitches guys have thrown for 100 years," he said with a laugh. "Nothing special, nothing tricky. No reverse spinner or anything like that. It's the same set of tools that every other pitcher works with. It's how you use them and how you compete that matters."

Without making excuses, Bannister acknowledges it was sometimes tough to concentrate while his wife was going through a tough pregnancy.

"She was constantly on my mind," he said. "Now it's so great. I go home at night, and Brynn doesn't care if I win or lose. She just wants to play."

Brynn's first experience with baseball was not a happy one. She was on her mom's lap behind home plate when San Diego's Emil Brown threw his bat into the stands.

"She freaked out," Bannister said. "She heard everybody around her scream, and she started screaming. She was behind the net, so the bat's not going to hit her. Everybody around her calmed down, but she didn't."