Zack Greinke pitched eight innings Thursday night, allowing one walk and one hit, a home run, as the Diamondbacks beat the Pirates 2-1. Greinke struck out 11 batters and took a no-hitter into the eighth inning. After the game, he talked about a change he made:
After a start last month at Dodger Stadium, where Greinke was hit hard by his former team, he started poking around in search of answers. He wouldn’t say who he turned to for help, but he said a couple of people told him his slider seemed unusually slow. Since then, he’s been nearly unhittable.
“I started throwing it a little harder, but it’s kind of just going right to a good spot all the time,” Greinke said. “Even if I try to throw it down the middle, it kind of goes down and away. I don’t know if the mechanics are good right now and making the location good, but it’s going to good zones and it’s sharp.”
FanGraphs lists the speed of Greinke’s slider about a mile per hour slower that last season. Given the switch to a new tracking system added one MPH to 2017 pitches compared to 2016, his slider might have been a lot slower his first few starts of the season.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2r7f9BM
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