Was charting Senga’s start and to me he’s almost throwing 3 different slider shapes?? I can’t tell if it’s intentional or just variance like some Japanese pitchers will have.
Against LHBs he was throwing a vertical almost Death Ball Slider and then sprinkling in more of a sweeper shape to them along with the obvious Sweepers to RHBs. The variance is cool and I think he’s around the zone with his breakers just to be competitive with them. It’s also neat that he throws the slower 12-6 curve as a wrinkle too.
The cutter is the main contact suppressor but he has some options now in his arsenal for someone who’s splitter/fork is as nasty as it is.
Interesting! It kind of looks like 2 shapes to me, the tighter bullet pitch around 85 and then the sweeper around 80 with more lateral. But his sweeper does have some natural variance, so it may appear differently at times?
The "death ball" shape you're talking about (I think) is the ~85 mph slider that he throws to righties as well. He only threw that 1 to Soderstrom yesterday and left it way up in the zone.
Was charting Senga’s start and to me he’s almost throwing 3 different slider shapes?? I can’t tell if it’s intentional or just variance like some Japanese pitchers will have.
Against LHBs he was throwing a vertical almost Death Ball Slider and then sprinkling in more of a sweeper shape to them along with the obvious Sweepers to RHBs. The variance is cool and I think he’s around the zone with his breakers just to be competitive with them. It’s also neat that he throws the slower 12-6 curve as a wrinkle too.
The cutter is the main contact suppressor but he has some options now in his arsenal for someone who’s splitter/fork is as nasty as it is.
Interesting! It kind of looks like 2 shapes to me, the tighter bullet pitch around 85 and then the sweeper around 80 with more lateral. But his sweeper does have some natural variance, so it may appear differently at times?
The "death ball" shape you're talking about (I think) is the ~85 mph slider that he throws to righties as well. He only threw that 1 to Soderstrom yesterday and left it way up in the zone.