![]() ![]() He’s feeling great and changed how he attacked hitters in his last two outings, mentally and physically, in order to prepare for the regular season. Smyly threw his sinker at 92.6 mph last season and was already hitting 93-94 late this spring. His whole game is inducing soft contact and utilizing his curveball more often - 42.9 percent of the time in 2023 - than any starter in baseball. Steele doesn’t blow his stuff by hitters, and he’s got such a dangerous slider that he can pair with a fastball that moves with rare cut-rise action that overthinking how hard he’s throwing it would likely only lead to more problems.ĭrew Smyly doesn’t rely on velocity much either. But even if he doesn’t display peak velocity, nobody will stress. Steele will get another outing Sunday to tune up for the real deal next weekend. Getting him comfortable and feeling what he wants to feel and then stepping on the gas and continuing to create momentum down the mound are things we’ll continue to build on.” ” You may be able to execute pitches and the movement of them may be good, but the velocity is probably going to suffer. “When you do that in a game, you’re losing center of mass, velocity, you’re losing momentum down the mound,” Hottovy said. That works well during a side session in between starts, but not so much in the game. Sometimes, as Hottovy shared, pitchers will slow themselves down to really feel where they’re at. There are certain cues pitchers have to help them get back into form if they feel like they’re drifting from where they should be mechanically. What Hottovy doesn’t want Steele to do is to overthink things on the mound and search for his mechanics. Obviously he knows he doesn’t want to pitch at 90-91, but he knows he can compete at a high level even if he is 91-92 instead of 94-95.” But he’s got such a unique pitch mix and such unique stuff, that a lot of the success for him was having consistent movement and then locating those pitches. “He’s a guy whose success last year wasn’t tied to velocity,” Hottovy said. But he used the pitch more often that outing than he did in all but two starts and worked seven frames of one-run ball. On June 13 of last season, Steele’s four-seamer averaged 91.2 mph, his third-lowest mark for a start last year. Am I getting outs and putting it where I want?” “I’ve had starts where I’m 89-92 and then starts where I’m 95 and touching 96. “I looked at velocity as one of those things that it’s going to come when it’s going to come,” Steele said. Ross preaches this message to his younger pitchers and it’s a good lesson to learn. Steele’s four-seam fastball sat at 92.2 mph last season, but part of what he learned last year is that pitching in the big leagues means learning how to make it work even if you don’t have your very best stuff. I think we’re going to see a steady increase in velocity as the year goes on.” Pushing him too much now to sacrifice something down the road is not the best path. “But having him build as the year goes on is a very important thing for him to be able to do. “Is he going to be 95 (mph) the first game of the season? Probably not,” pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |